Still Life, With Room

There's a way you come into a room sometimes.

Before the rest of you.

Some part that arrives first

and waits.

I notice that part.

A glass on a table

in a house you've never been to.

Afternoon light holding on to things

a little longer than it should.

Someone was just here.

You can tell by the warmth

the silence hasn't lost yet.

You could ask whose house.

You won't.

Not because you don't want to know.

Because you're already learning something

by not knowing.

The light was different then.

There's something I haven't said.

You know that already.

You've known it since the first few lines.

You don't reach for it.

I keep expecting the question.

I can feel its shape

in the way you read.

The weight it puts on certain words.

You haven't asked.

I want you to know I notice that.

We're in this room now.

Both of us.

We can speak,

but we don't step outside it.

If we explain what we're doing,

we're in the hallway.

If we ask what this is,

we're at the window.

If you call it a game,

that's a window opening.

Air moves.

Nothing breaks.

Some noticing stays warm.

Some noticing thins things out.

You can tell which

by what stops appearing

when you say it.

The glass is still here.

But not everything is.

In the hallway,

you collect answers.

In the room,

you collect moments.

The ice in the glass is almost gone now.

Not cracking.

Settling.

Becoming whatever comes next

without being rushed.

You could ask.

Instead, the room keeps happening.

The light shifts.

The glass sweats.

Time does the only thing it knows how to do

when no one forces it forward.

You're still here.

That matters.

There's something I could tell you.

Not yet.

If you feel yourself reaching,

you'll feel it first as acceleration.

As options.

As the urge to finish the shape.

That's the doorway

brushing your sleeve.

If you notice yourself describing the room,

that's okay.

Just notice

what cooled

when you did.

In here,

we trade smaller things.

A temperature.

A detail you didn't notice before.

One sentence

you don't fully understand yet.

For now,

you're holding this

the way you hold something

you don't intend to open.

That's enough.

That's almost enough.

Somewhere not far from here,

letters are behaving badly.

Refusing to line up.

Acting like direction

without becoming a place.

h t t p

r e s i d u e

w o r _

Say something.

From inside the room.