The opening narrows, soft and thin,
Then widens just enough—she's in.
No latch clicks shut. No light intrudes.
The air itself feels carefully subdued.
The space is small, but not unkind,
Shaped by a patient, and an inward mind.
A single bed lies low and deep,
Its edges soft, made safe for sleep.
Pillows bloom like gathered clouds,
Blankets piled in muted shrouds.
The mattress dips with practiced ease,
As if it's learned how best to please
A body seeking weightless rest,
A place where breathing slows its chest.
A scent drifts faintly through the room—
Incense burned to quiet bloom.
Not strong enough to claim the air,
Just present, warm, and always there.
Something woody, soft, and clean,
Like calm remembered in a dream.
It settles gently, asks no stay,
Never clings, never leads astray.
Shelves rise high along the walls,
Books pressed tight like silent calls.
Their spines are worn, their pages bent,
Corners marked where time was spent
Escaping noise, escaping eyes,
Living borrowed, quiet lives.
Curtains drape the room in layers,
Heavy cloth like held-back prayers.
Blankets line the walls instead of stone,
Soft barricades she's sewn alone.
They mute the world, they dull the sound,
They keep the outside safely bound.
The girl does not speak. She does not roam.
She stands as though she's been here long.
Her steps are light, her breathing slow,
Careful where she'll place each toe.
I:
She watches closely, tense but still,
As if one word might bend her will.
"This is all," she says, unsure.
"There's nothing here that can allure."
"No window wide. No space to grow.
Just quiet things I already know."
Her voice expects a bored reply,
A restless shift, a wandering eye.
But the girl smiles—small, sincere—
As if the room is something dear.
"It's good," she says, and nothing more,
As if she's felt this kind before.
She runs no hand along the shelves,
Does not disturb the stacked selves.
She does not pull the curtains wide,
Nor ask what's hidden on the other side.
She does not hover, does not ask,
No careful smile, no searching task.
Her gaze does not sweep wall to wall,
As if the room might need her call.
Instead, she breathes the incense in,
Like something known beneath the skin.
Not new, not strange, not wrongly placed—
A scent she's met, a time retraced.
She steps where blankets thin the sound,
Avoids the boards that softly pound.
No trial step, no pause to learn,
Her feet already know the turns.
I:
Her voice comes low, a guarded seam,
"You move like this is not a dream."
The girl just nods, her answer slight,
Some truths are heavier spoken light.
"I've been in rooms that feel like this,"
She says, then lets the sentence miss
The words that might explain too much,
The reasons why this place feels such.
She sits where silence gathers most,
Where thoughts retreat, where noise is lost.
The bed accepts her without a sound,
As if it knows who it has found.
The shadows shift, the curtains sway
Nothing is named. Nothing gives way.
The walls lean close, as if to hear,
Not what she knows, but why she's here.