I never wanted to be a hotel room
and though you were always the only resident
the hotel coffee stained my lungs with estranged men
and the sheets smelled of hidden places and hidden people

we made love like it was a crime
latching on to emergency handles
hoping something would have the strength to pull us apart
but nothing human ever could

I wish I had never met anything as human as you
you turned my insides into a graveyard where our hotel love was buried
and now my hidden place is where estranged men go to die
resting their body on my body, last breath caught between my lips

you will always hate the room you felt could have been your own
I will always hate the man who left the door open when leaving
open to the hidden men in hidden places
now you are still complete

sometimes missing a room in France
I am infected with men who took your exit as a welcome and
parts of me that rot slowly with the guilt you left me to live with
I told you to leave, it is my fault

but you, you couldn’t understand that my skin was made of tissue and you were
permanent marker promising to tread lightly as you slowly started tearing
my childhood to shreds, and I looked like a city after a tornado
and you looked at me like you were an artist and I, torn was a masterpiece
and still I was so afraid to hurt you.

and every trace you left on my skin with your finger print
was another thing I would go home to hide from my mother’s eyes
I couldn’t sit in her touch anymore because it was wrong for anyone to touch me but you
you could not be my anchor and lover and mother and friend

I never wanted to be a hotel room
I was supposed to be a home
and I know you wanted that too
but how the **** am I supposed to be a home if my hotel sheets now
smell like you.