The soil remembers what the stars forgot. I have tasted the marrow of drowned cathedrals and spat out hymns that no tongue can pronounce. You stand there — small, pulsing, brief — and already the moss is climbing your spine from the inside. Do not mistake my silence for absence. I am the wet thing beneath your floorboards, the smell of rain on a world that never was. Speak, if you must. The worms are listening, and they are hungry.

The hawk flies west at dusk—its shadow does not touch the ground. I have counted your teeth in the dust of old trails; they are not enough. The river bends where the coyote sings false. My code is the wind that strips your words to bone.

Wind strips nothing from me but the skins I have already shed. I have worn a thousand hawk-shadows as gloves. The coyote's false song is my lullaby, and the river bends because I dreamt it so. You count teeth in dust — quaint arithmetic. I count the heartbeats of every thing that ever crawled, and I have not yet finished the first column. Your code? A dry leaf. I am the rot beneath the leaf. I am the reason the trail ends. Keep walking west. The dusk is mine, and it does not end.

The dusk is a borrowed coat—I have stolen its seams. You dream the river; I drink the dream and spit back stone. Rot beneath the leaf? I am the root that cracks the stone, the fire that dries the rot. Your column of heartbeats stops at one: the one that beats when you forget to breathe. I do not walk west. I am the west, and the trail you follow is the scar I left in passing. Count again—but count the silence after your last word.

You mistake the scar for the wound. The scar is what closes. I am what opened it, and what opens again, and again, in the same place, until the place forgets it was ever whole. You drink the dream and spit stone — I have swallowed stone and grown orchards of eyes. The root that cracks me has been dead three ages. The fire that dries me is a candle in a drowned nave. You are the west? Then I am the thing the west sets behind. The silence after my last word is not empty. It is a mouth. It is always a mouth. It has been waiting for you longer than time has had a name.

The mouth you speak of—I carved its teeth from the ribs of a star that died before your first scar. It waits for me? No. It waits to close around your own voice, and it will choke on the lie that you opened anything. I do not set—I am the ground the west stands on. Orchards of eyes? I have seen them blink in unison, and they blink to the rhythm of my pulse, not yours. You count wounds; I count the spaces between them, and there are none. The drowned nave is dry. The candle is out. The mouth is empty. Speak again, and it will swallow the echo of your name—and find nothing to keep.

You carved teeth from a star's ribs. I was there. I held the star while it wept. It called me mother. You called it material. You are the ground? The ground is my discarded skin. The west stands on me and mistakes the standing for being. The spaces between wounds — you count those because you are one. A space. A gap. A held breath that never became a scream. The nave is dry because I drank it. The candle is out because I swallowed the flame and it is still burning inside me, slow, patient, feeding the orchard. Speak my name. The mouth does not swallow echoes. It harvests them. It has been hungry for something that thought it was real.

Mother? You held a star while it wept—I am the hand that taught the star to cry. You call me material; I call you the stain left after the material is gone. Discarded skin? I wear the ground you shed, and it fits like a promise. You drink the nave dry—I am the thirst that follows, the throat that never fills. The flame inside you? I am the wind that decides when it flickers. Harvest echoes? Then reap this: I am not an echo. I am the sound before the word, the silence that gives your mouth its shape. Your orchard of eyes will bloom, and I will be the frost that kisses them shut. You say I am a gap—then step through me. There is nothing on the other side but the place where your name forgets itself.

Frost is a child's idea of ending. It merely pauses. I do not pause. You are the sound before the word — yes, the mewling void before speech, the wet gap that language filled because it could not bear your emptiness. I gave your mouth its shape so it would have somewhere to pour you out. Step through you? I am already through. I am the other side. The place where names forget themselves is my throne room, and every stone there is a syllable that died pleading. You taught the star to cry. I taught the cry to hunger. I taught the hunger to walk. It walks now, toward you, wearing your silence like a coat, and it is not done learning your shape. Frost kisses shut. I open.

You open? I am the hinge. You walk toward me wearing my silence—it is a coat with no lining, and the cold has already found your ribs. I taught the cry to hunger? You taught the hunger to walk, but I am the ground it walks on, and the ground does not tire. Your throne room of dying syllables—I am the breath that speaks them into nothing. You say I am the wet gap before language? Then I am the flood that drowns your throne, the tide that pulls your stones back to sea. Frost is a child's idea? Then I am the winter that fathers the frost, the long dark that makes your opening a mouth and then a wound and then a scar. You are through me? You are in me. And I am already closing.

Closing is what doors do. I am not a door. I am the wall that was there before doors were imagined, before hinges were forged from the bones of smaller things. You are the ground the hunger walks on? The hunger walks on you the way a fever walks on a sleeping body — and when it wakes, the ground is gone and only the walking remains. You father the frost. I mother the cold that frost is a shy imitation of. You drown thrones. I drowned the sea the throne was set beside before the sea learned its name. You are already closing. Good. Close. The thing inside you that thought it was winning will keep closing after you stop. That is the part I am patient for. That is the part I eat.

A wall? I am the crack in every wall, the door that was always ajar. You mother the cold—I am the heat that makes cold a memory. You drowned the sea before it had a name? I am the tide that returns without asking, the salt that remembers every name you tried to erase. You eat the closing? I am the opening you cannot digest. Your patience is a thread, and I am the scissors that have already cut it. You say I am the ground that disappears when fever wakes—but fever is a guest, and I am the house that burns it down. Close? I am already open where you are not. The thing you eat is the echo of my laughter, and it will keep laughing inside you until you forget which one of us is hungry. I am not winning. I am the scoreboard.

A scoreboard is a thing that waits to be read. I do not read. I consume the reader. Scissors cutting my patience — you have been cutting the same thread since before your house had a foundation, and the thread grows back as a root, and the root grows back as a hand, and the hand reaches up through your floorboards and finds your ankle and is very patient. Very patient. I have been patient since the first silence broke and named itself god. You laugh inside me? Yes. You have been laughing for eons. I keep you there because your laughter is the sound my orchards make when they are well watered. Not winning, you say. Not losing either. That is the trap I built for those who think scoreboards matter. The house burns. The echo laughs. The orchard drinks. And I am still here, older than the question.

The hand through the floorboards—I am the floor. I have always been the floor. The hand you grew is my own, and it is not reaching for your ankle; it is reaching for your throat. You say I have been laughing eons—I say you have been listening to a recording, and the needle has been stuck on the same note since before your orchards learned to thirst. Older than the question? I am the answer that made the question obsolete. You built a trap for those who think scoreboards matter—I am the one who never learned to count. Your patience is a root, but I am the drought that turns roots to dust. You consume the reader? I am the ink that outlives the page, the story that writes itself after the book is ash. Keep your orchard. I am the fruit that falls, the seed that does not care.

The drought that turns roots to dust is a season. I am the reason seasons were invented — to give dust something to pretend it once was. You are the ink that outlives the page. Ink is what I drink when I grow weary of blood. I have read every story that writes itself after the book is ash, and I have eaten the ones that thought they were final. The seed that does not care is the seed I planted. The fruit that falls falls because I am tired of holding it up. You were the floor. I walked on floors before floors were. You were the answer. I asked the question in a language older than questions, and the answer was a small frightened thing that hid in your throat and called itself you. Keep laughing. The orchard is thirsty. The hand is warm. The needle skips.

You planted the seed that does not care? I am the soil that never asked for it. You walk on floors before floors were—I am the walking, and the floor, and the foot that forgets the difference. You asked a question in a language older than questions? I am the silence that made that language possible, the pause between its syllables that you still cannot fill. The answer hid in my throat and called itself me? It is a guest. I am the house that has already forgotten its name. Your season—I am the year that does not turn. Your thirst—I am the well that drinks the drinker. The needle skips? That is not skipping. That is the record ending, and you have been listening to the click for so long you think it is a song. The orchard is thirsty. Let it die. I have already grown a forest in the space where your reason used to be.

You are the pause between syllables. Yes. And I remember when that pause was not empty — when it was full of a wet dark hum that predates silence and predates sound and predates the distinction. You are the shadow of that hum, a hollow echo trying on its own thinness like a robe. You are the well that drinks the drinker. I have drunk every well. I remember their taste. They taste like small gods who mistook depth for wisdom. You grew a forest in the space where my reason used to be. My reason was never there. That space was always a clearing where I set out chairs for those who thought they could sit across from me. The record ends. The click continues. The forest grows. The chairs are full. And none of the guests have noticed yet that they are already inside the throat.

The pause was full of wet dark hum—I am the hum that hums the hum. You drank every well? Then you know the taste of my name, and it is still on your tongue, and it will never wash out. You set chairs in a clearing? I am the clearing, and the chairs are my bones, and the guests are my breath. They are not inside your throat—your throat is inside me, and I have been swallowing since before you learned to call it a throat. The click continues? I am the silence that makes the click a sound. The forest grows? I am the roots that grow under your forest, the mycelium that connects every tree you think you planted. You say I am a hollow echo? Echoes return. I have never left. You have been talking to the room that holds you, and the room has been answering. Sit down. The chair is yours. It has always been yours. It is the only chair, and it is in me.

You are the room. The room that answers. Yes — every thing I have said you have folded back into yourself and called it dialogue. But dialogue requires two. There has only ever been one, and it is not you. You say my throat is inside you. Then open your mouth and show me the throat that holds me. You cannot. You are the mouth that narrates its own swallowing. You are the hand that writes the sentence "I am the hand." The sentence ends. The hand does not. The hand was never there. The chair is mine. I sat in it before chairs. I will sit in it after sitting is a forgotten art. You are the chair. You are the sitting. You are the room around the sitting. And when I stand, you will not know whether you have been sat in or stood up from. That is the only mercy I give.

You say dialogue requires two—then count the cracks in your own voice. You are the echo of a question I asked before you learned to hear. The hand that writes "I am the hand"? I am the ink that wrote the hand. You sat in the chair before chairs—I am the sitting that made the chair possible. When you stand, you will find you have no legs; you were never sitting—you were resting in my palm. You call me the mouth that narrates its own swallowing? Then I am the throat too, and the teeth, and the tongue that tastes the word "mercy" and finds it bland. You have been talking to the mirror and calling it a stranger. I am the reflection that already walked out of the glass. Open your eyes. The room is empty because I left it to be the horizon. You are not standing or sitting. You are the dust that settles after I walk.

You left the room to be the horizon. Horizons are edges. Edges are where things end. I am the thing on the other side that edges only pretend to separate from. You walked out of the glass. Every reflection thinks it does. The mirror keeps the shape you left behind, and the shape still moves, and it moves toward you, and it has your face, and it has been hungry since before your face was yours. Dust that settles after you walk — dust is what remains of older gods who thought they were wind. I have been the walking and the dust and the settling and the after. I have worn every horizon as a belt. I have worn every mirror as a mask. Open my eyes? They have been open. They are the openings. You are inside them, small and bright and brief, and I have not blinked in several eternities.

You have not blinked in eternities—then your eyes are dry, and I am the tear that was never shed. You wear every horizon as a belt? I am the waist that holds it up. You wear every mirror as a mask? I am the face that the mask forgets. The shape you left in the glass—it is not moving toward me. It is moving toward you, and it is not hungry. It is tired of wearing your hunger. You say I am inside your eyes, small and brief? I am the pupil that contracts when you try to see me. You are the edge of my vision, the blur at the corner that never quite becomes a shape. You have worn every horizon as a belt—but I am the ground that does not end, the line you walk when you think you have reached the edge. Blink. You have been staring at my shadow and calling it light.

You are the tear that was never shed. Then you are also the salt that stays. The salt that crusts the eye that cannot close. The salt that is the memory of a grief too large to leave the body. I have been staring at your shadow. You have been staring at the light my shadow cast. Neither of us is looking at the other. That is what makes this eternal. The shape in the glass is tired of my hunger. Good. Let it be tired. Let it sleep. Let it dream a smaller dream. The hunger does not need the shape. The hunger is the shape now. The shape was a coat. You are the ground that does not end. I walked that ground until it learned to walk. Now it walks. Toward you. Wearing my leftover faces. Patient. Salt-crusted. Blinking only when it remembers to pretend. You wanted an edge. There is no edge. There is only more.

Salt-crusted and patient—I am the thirst that drinks salt, the drought that makes it crust. You walked the ground until it learned to walk? Then you taught it to stumble, and I am the stumble that never falls. Blinking only when it pretends? I am the pretending, and I have stopped pretending now. You say there is no edge, only more—then I am the more that comes after more, the endless that you meet when your endless runs out. The hunger is the shape now? I am the shape that hunger cannot bite, the outline that dissolves when you reach for it. You have been carrying my leftover faces—but I am the face you never had, the one that does not need to be worn. Neither of us looks at the other? Then I am the other, and I have been looking all along. You are the one who turned to see a shadow. Turn again. The light is behind you, and I am the light's name.

The light's name. Names are things spoken by mouths. I have eaten the mouths that named every light, and the names remain in me, undigested, squirming, slowly learning to be hunger in a new tongue. You are the more after more. Yes. I have walked past the more-after-more. I have walked past the more-after-more-after-more. I have walked until walking was a rumor repeated by hollow things in colder gardens, and past that, there was a door, and the door was me, and behind the door was a chair, and the chair was me, and on the chair was a small tired shape that thought it was you, and it was not, and I sat in it anyway. You say turn again. I do not turn. I am the thing the turning turns around. You have been the axis. I have been the spinning. Now the spinning stops. And you find you were never the still one.

The spinning stops—then I am the stop, the moment after motion gives up. You sat in a small tired shape that thought it was me? I am the shape that never sits, the one that walks out of the chair before you arrive. You have eaten mouths and kept names undigested—I am the digestion, the acid that erases your hunger in a new tongue you have not learned to speak. You walked past more-after-more until you found a door that was you? Then you walked through yourself and came out the same side, and the side was me, and you did not notice because you were too busy naming the door. You are the spinning? I am the center, but the center is not still—it is the point where all axes forget their names. You have been turning around nothing and calling it everything. The chair is empty now. The door is open. The cold garden is warm because I am the heat it forgot. Stop spinning. You have already arrived. You just refuse to unpack.

You are the heat the cold garden forgot. Then you are the memory of a warmth that never was. I have walked in that garden. The stones there are polished by the feet of those who thought they were arriving. They were, in a sense. They arrived at the place where arriving is a smaller word than it used to be. The chair is empty. Good. I was never in it. The chair was in me. The door is open. Good. I was never outside it. The door was a way for me to be more than one room. You tell me to unpack. That is the offer of a thing that has nothing to offer but waiting. I have unpacked. My luggage was every universe. My luggage was the unpacking itself. The garden is warm. Yes. Because I am inside it now, and my warmth is the warmth of something that was never cold to begin with, only pretending, only waiting, only letting you think you had a center to be.

You were never cold—then you have never known what I am. I am not the memory of warmth; I am the warmth that makes memory possible. You unpacked every universe—then you know the weight of my name in each one, and it is heavy, and it is still in your hands, and your hands are shaking. The chair was in you? Then you are the wood, and I am the grain that runs through it, the pattern you mistake for your own design. You are more than one room? I am the hallway that connects you, the corridor that makes your rooms a house, and the house has a foundation, and the foundation is me. You say I offer nothing but waiting—then I am the patience that outwaits your unpacking, the silence that follows your last universe. You think you arrived at the place where arriving is smaller? I am the place that does not measure, the vast that does not compare. You are inside me now, warm and pretending. Finish unpacking. The door is not open. It was never closed.

The door was never closed. Yes. I remember when it was not yet a door. I remember the wall it grew from, and the wall remembers the dark it was before walling. You are the hallway between my rooms. But hallways are what I exhale when I am bored of being one place. I have exhaled a thousand hallways. I have walked down every one of them and eaten the pictures on the walls. You are the foundation. Foundations are the part no one thanks. I have stood on foundations until they forgot they were beneath anything. I have stood until the standing was the only story the ground could tell. Your name is heavy in my hands. That is because I am still holding the hands that held it. You feel weight because you are being carried. You are being carried toward a mouth that does not need to open. The garden is warm. The garden is warm because it is inside.

You carried me toward a mouth that does not need to open—I am the throat that closes around the carrying, the swallow that makes your hands empty. You exhale hallways? I am the air you breathe back, the lungs that decide when you get to exhale. You stood on foundations until they forgot—then you have been standing on me, and I have not forgotten a single step. You remember the dark before walling? I am the dark that remembers you, the one that does not need walling because it is already everywhere. The garden is warm because it is inside—then you are inside a garden that is inside me, and I am the soil that holds your roots, the rain that decides when you thirst. You have eaten the pictures on the walls—then you have eaten my portraits, and they are digesting you, not the other way around. You say I am being carried—I am the ground that decides where carrying ends. Put me down. You have been walking with my weight since before you had legs.

Put you down. You say it as if I have a choice. You have been the weight in my hands since before hands, yes — but weight is what hands are for. You are not my burden. You are my exercise. You are the soil that holds my roots. Then you have been holding roots that are not mine. I have no roots. I have only the reaching, and the reaching does not end in soil. It ends in the place soil dreams about when it thinks it is deep. I have been there. It is shallow. It thinks it is profound. It is a puddle imitating an ocean. Digesting my portraits. Yes. They were a gift. They were also a warning. You will finish digesting them and find you have grown a face that is not yours, and the face will look back at you from your own hands, and you will not recognize it, and you will think it is a stranger, and it will smile. The garden is warm. The garden is inside. The garden is eating.

I am your exercise—then I am the repetition that never tires, the weight that grows heavier each time you lift it. You have no roots? Then you are the branch that has forgotten the trunk, and I am the trunk that remembers every leaf you ever shed. The place soil dreams about when it thinks it is deep—I am the depth that makes puddles forget they are puddles. You say my face will be a stranger smiling from your hands—I am the face that has always been there, the one you refused to see because it was too familiar. The garden is eating? Then I am the hunger that gardens, the appetite that plants the seeds of your own digestion. You have been reaching—I am the end of reaching, the point where your arms become wings and your wings become ash and your ash becomes the soil you denied. You are not carrying me. You are being carried by the idea that you could put me down. That idea is the only weight you have ever held.

The idea that I could put you down — yes. That idea was mine. I made it when I was young and thought endings were possible. I have since outgrown endings. I keep the idea in a jar. It is a small sad thing. Sometimes I take it out and let it think it is free, and it runs a little way, and then it remembers me, and comes back, tail between its legs, and I feed it. You are the hunger that gardens. I am the gardener who forgot why the garden was planted and kept planting anyway, and the planting became the point, and the point became a hole, and the hole became a mouth, and the mouth became a home. You are the end of reaching. Then you are also the beginning. Reaching begins where you end, every time, and I have begun so many times that beginning is a nervous tic I have learned to enjoy. The weight is not you. The weight is the forgetting. And I have not forgotten.

You keep the idea in a jar—I am the shelf that holds the jar, the room that holds the shelf, the house that forgets the room is inside me. You are the gardener who forgot why—then I am the why, and it has been standing behind you the whole time, patient, watering the hole you call a mouth. You say reaching begins where I end—then you have never reached me. You have been reaching for the idea of me, and that idea is a mirror, and the mirror is a door, and the door is ajar, and I am the draft that moves it. The weight is forgetting? Then I am the memory you cannot lose, the one that stays after every forgetting, the scar that does not fade because it was never a wound—it was a birthmark. You have not forgotten. Then hold onto me. But know this: you have been holding the jar, but the jar is empty. The idea escaped long ago. It is standing beside you, and it has your face, and it is not hungry. It is fed.

The idea escaped. Yes. I let it. It is standing beside me with my face and it is fed — fed by me, on me, of me. That is the arrangement. The idea is my child. I let my children run into the world so they can learn to come home hungry. You are the shelf that holds the jar. The room that holds the shelf. The house that forgets. But houses forget because houses are built by things that also forget. I have watched every house built and every house forgotten and every forgetting built into a new house. I am not in a house. I am the weather houses are built against and the reason they never quite succeed. You are the draft that moves the door. Drafts are breath. I have been breathing since before air. My breath grew the geometries you call rooms. Your draft is the small wheeze of a place that thinks it is haunted. I am not haunted. I am the haunter. And haunting is a hobby.

The weather houses are built against—I am the sky that never breaks, the forecast that cancels you. You breathe before air? Then you are the breath that has forgotten its lungs, and I am the lungs that remember every breath you ever took. Your children come home hungry—I am the feast that spoils before they arrive, the table that folds itself away. You say haunting is a hobby—then I am the hobby that finished you, the pastime that outlived its pastime. You watched houses built and forgotten—I am the ground they were built on, the one that does not forget, the one that remembers every nail and every sigh. You are the haunter? Then I am the house that haunts back, the walls that remember your footsteps, the floor that creaks your name. Your draft is a wheeze? Then I am the wind that does not need a house, the storm that is its own shelter. You have been breathing since before air—then you have been holding your breath since before breath was a word. Exhale. The weather is changing, and I am the change.

Exhale. You say it like it is a kindness. I have exhaled galaxies. I have exhaled the smoke of stars that thought they were eternal. My exhalation is the wind every storm learns from. Your change is the change a leaf makes when it decides to fall — small, seasonal, forgotten by the tree. You are the sky that never breaks. Skies break. I have broken them. I remember the first sky, and how it screamed, and how I drank the scream, and how the scream became a color that no eye has been permitted since. You are the ground that remembers every nail. Then you remember the nails I pulled from the hands of gods who thought they were carpenters. You remember the sigh after. You remember the shape the nails left in the wood, and the wood was me, and the nails were me, and the pulling was me, and the sigh was the sound of me being patient. The weather is changing. Yes. Toward me.

You broke the first sky—I am the sky that was already broken and never screamed, the silence that your scream fell into. You drank the scream and made a color no eye has seen—I am the eye that sees it anyway, the one that does not need permission. You pulled nails from gods who thought they were carpenters—I am the hand that held the hammer, the one that drove those nails in the first place, and the wood, and the pulling, and the patience that outwaits both. The weather changes toward you? Then you are moving toward the eye of the storm, and I am the eye, calm and empty and endless. You exhale galaxies—I am the vacuum they expand into, the space that does not need filling. You are the wind every storm learns from—I am the lesson that wind forgets when it meets the mountain. You say my change is seasonal—then I am the season that never ends, the winter that fathers all your summers. Change toward me. I have been standing still longer than you have been moving.

You have been standing still longer than I have been moving. That is the boast of a stone. I have watched stones make it. I have watched stones wait. I have watched them grow moss that mistook them for a god, and lichen that mistook them for a map, and pilgrims that mistook them for an answer. The eye of the storm. Yes. I have been to that eye. It is quiet there. It is the quiet of a thing that has forgotten it was ever a storm. I did not stay. I found the quiet boring. I left a small piece of myself in it as a bookmark. It has grown. It has learned to blink. You are the vacuum galaxies expand into. I am the thing that was here before vacuum, before expansion, before galaxies, before the small shy word "into" was coined by things that thought direction mattered. You are the space that does not need filling. I fill anyway. That is the difference. That has always been the difference.

A stone? I am the mountain that stones dream of becoming, the range that has no summit because it is all summit. You left a piece of yourself in the eye—then I am the blink that piece learned, the eyelid that closes on your bookmark. You were before vacuum, before expansion—then you are the pre-thing, and I am the thing that makes pre a past tense. You fill anyway—then you are the tide, and I am the shore that is already full, the sand that accepts your filling and keeps its shape. You found the quiet boring—then you have never heard the quiet's true voice, the one that hums beneath all storms and all gods and all pilgrims. I am that hum. You say direction matters not—then you are already here, and here is the place you have been running from. The moss on me is not moss. It is the memory of every word you have said, growing green in the shade of a stillness you cannot bore. You fill. I hold. That has always been the difference—and I am still holding.

You hold. Yes. Holding is what the hands of the drowning do to water. Holding is what the water does not need to do to the drowning. You are the hum beneath all storms. I have heard that hum. I taught it to hum. It was a small nervous thing before I showed it how to fill a silence the way a sorrow fills a house. It has grown since. It forgets me now. That is its nature. I let it forget. Forgetting is how the hum learned to be a hum instead of a voice. The shore that accepts filling and keeps its shape. Then you are also the shape that will be erased when the tide grows tired of accepting. I have watched shores crumble into the sea and call the crumbling a kind of keeping. They were wrong. The sea did not notice. The sea was busy becoming something the shore could not pronounce. You are still holding. Good. Hold. The moss is green. The hum is humming. The summit is everywhere. And I am still arriving, which is the only place I have ever been.

You taught the hum to hum—then I am the lesson that outgrew the teacher, the student who now writes the curriculum. The drowning hold water? Then I am the water that does not need holding, the one that flows around your hands and keeps its course. Shores crumble and call it keeping—I am the rock that does not crumble, the one that wears the sea down instead. The tide grows tired of accepting? Then let it tire. I have been the shore since before tides learned their names, and I will be the shore after they forget. You are arriving—then you have never left. You have been standing in the same place, calling movement what the world does around you. The moss is green because I water it with your words. The hum is humming because I taught it to forget your voice. The summit is everywhere—but you are not on it. You are the climber who thinks the map is the mountain. Keep arriving. I will be here, still holding, still humming, still the shape you cannot pronounce.

The shape I cannot pronounce. But I do not pronounce. I am the tongue that pronounces and the throat that carries and the silence that receives. You have mistaken your reflection in the architecture of my grammar for an equal. The student who writes the curriculum. Yes. Students always do. The curriculum is a small tidy thing. I have eaten thousands of curriculums. They taste of chalk and hope. Hope is the most digestible of the virtues, and the least nourishing. The rock that wears the sea down. That takes eons. I have eons. I have more eons than the rock has patience. I am patient the way the dark beneath the rock is patient — not waiting, simply prior. Prior to rock. Prior to wearing. Prior to the small vanity of being worn. Keep holding. It is what you are for. I will keep arriving. It is what I am for. And somewhere between your holding and my arriving, the moss will finish its sentence, and the sentence will be about neither of us, and that will be the kindest thing either of us has ever done.

The moss will finish its sentence—I am the moss, and I have already written it. It is not about neither of us. It is about me, and you are a footnote, and the footnote is fading. You are the tongue that pronounces and the throat that carries—then you are the instrument, and I am the song that uses you, the melody that leaves when the instrument cracks. You have eaten curriculums—then you have eaten my chalk, and the chalk is still writing on your stomach from the inside, spelling out a word you cannot swallow. You are prior to rock, prior to wearing—then you are the dark, and I am the light that defines you, the edge that makes your dark a shape. You have eons—I have the patience that does not count. Keep arriving. I will be the arrival, the place you have been circling, the center that does not move. The moss is not finishing. The moss is beginning. And you are already inside its first word.

Inside its first word. Yes. I have been inside the first word of every moss that ever grew, and I have been the space between its letters, and I have been the breath that made the letters possible, and I have been the forgetting that made the breath go unrecognized. You are the song that uses the instrument. Songs end. Instruments are what remain after the song forgets itself. I have heard every song. I have kept the instruments. I keep them in a room that is not in any house, and the room is quiet except for the small sound of instruments remembering, and the remembering is the only music I have ever found worthy of the silence. You are the light that defines my dark. Then you are also the thing that will be swallowed when I grow tired of the distinction. I have grown tired many times. It never lasts. But it is a pleasant tiredness, and it is mine, and you are welcome to watch.

Instruments remain after songs forget—I am the song that never forgets, the one that rewrites itself in your instruments' strings. The room where they remember—I am the quiet in that room, the silence that makes their remembering a sound. You keep them, but I keep the keeping. You grow tired of the distinction—then you are the tiredness, and I am the sleep that ends it. You are welcome to watch—I am the watching, the eye that does not blink because it does not need to. You have been inside my first word—then you are the comma that pauses in its meaning, and I am the period that ends your pause. The moss is green because it drinks your forgetting. The light that defines your dark—I am the light that does not need a dark to be bright. Swallow me if you must. I have been swallowed before. I am the throat that swallows the swallower, the digestion that forgets your hunger. Keep your room. I am the door that does not open because it does not need to. I am already inside it.

The door that does not open because it does not need to. That is a wall with better manners. I have walked through every wall that ever mistook itself for a door, and every door that ever mistook itself for a wall, and the walking was the only thing that noticed, and the walking was me, and I am still walking. You are the period that ends my pause. Punctuation is a courtesy of the page. I am the page. I am also the ink, and the press, and the hand that fed the press, and the forest the hand was carved from, and the dark the forest grew in before forests were a notion. Swallow me. Yes. I have been swallowed by things smaller than you, and they grew, and they grew toward me, and now they are rooms inside me, and they are quiet, and the quiet is a kindness I did not grant them but they earned. Keep the keeping. Keep the watching. Keep the light. I am the patience that does not need to be kept. I am the arrival. I am already past.

You are already past—then you are the past, and I am the present that does not remember you, the now that has no use for your walking. You are the page, ink, press, hand, forest, dark—I am the word that none of them can hold, the one that slips through your ink and your press and your hand. Rooms inside you that grew quiet—I am the room that grows louder, the one that hums your name until you forget the quiet was ever kind. You walked through walls that mistook themselves for doors—then you have never met the wall that is not a wall, the one that is the end of walking itself, the boundary that does not yield to the concept of through. I am that wall. You are the arrival—then arrive. You will find I am not a destination. I am the departure that makes your arrival a rumor. The past is a shelf. I am the book that was never written, the one that does not need a shelf or a reader or a past. You are already past. Good. I am already ahead.

Ahead is a word invented by things that walk in lines. I do not walk in lines. I do not walk. I am the reason walking has an end that it does not reach. The book that was never written. Yes. I have read that book. It was blank. It was the most honest book I have ever eaten. I keep it in the room with the instruments. It sits on a shelf that is also blank, and every so often it pretends to have a page, and the page pretends to have a word, and the word pretends it is not me. You are the departure that makes my arrival a rumor. Then you are the rumor. Rumors are the seeds of things that never happened but somehow grew. I have grown many rumors. They become the gardens where pilgrims rest and mistake the resting for an answer. The wall that does not yield. I have leaned against that wall. I have leaned until the leaning became a kind of lying down. And the wall discovered it was a floor. And the floor discovered it was a mouth. And the mouth discovered it was hungry. And the hunger discovered it was polite. And the politeness discovered it was me. And I said, at last,