Diary of a motel receptionist.

1.

I wish things had been a little different today
and I apologize to myself for being the same way
that I always have been
and I always am

as predictable as that man I see stumbling into the same motel room across a leaf-scattered parking lot, he peers over the same left shoulder, the same spiny fingers wrapped around a briefcase. He never changes, the room never changes, only the women –
they change.

2.

I suck Coca-Cola through a straw and pluck out an eyelash,
a man on telly screams “please watch me, please”
I try, but crusty eyelids slam shut and I
wake up head to desk, saliva streaming
down
my
neck and the man walks to his car
and the man drives off
and the man will come back.

3.

I would like someone to talk to
as I sit and watch and learn all
about someone else's secrecy.

I would like someone to huddle over
warm coffee with, scraping caramel off
porcelain bottoms, licking behind
our fingernails after every other
dip.

We could each have two cigarettes
as we laugh at bony strangers that pass by
and jump over deep puddles, deeper than
their bodies stacked
one on top of the
other.

4.

I would like to have a friend,
just one would be okay for:
sharing secrets and
filling up rooms with
our bodies and our
obnoxious laughs.

We could have coffee and lick spoons and
share a pack of lucky strikes
no other brand will do, because
our memories run deep

deeper than puddles
deeper than bubbling froth and bottomless black
deeper than the creases in her leopard print thighs
deeper than his gaping mouth, the one telling me to watch
deeper than the thrust of one man’s hips into another pair of hips

because we are brave, together we are so brave!
and perhaps I would try to kiss you.

5.

I would like to enjoy sex with somebody
as we shelter from the rain in a cheap
motel room and perhaps you, whoever you
are, will trace my bendy spine with fingertips
that tingle – the meeting of strange flesh, two
rubbery balloons, an electric effect.

6.

Most of all I would like to find the insides
of that briefcase, the one he clutches so tight,
darting raindrops in the dead of the afternoon.
I would like to undo the clasp and open it up
to reveal a heart.

I would like to hold the heart
I would like to hold the heart with both my hands
I would like to move the heart
I would like to move the heart with both my hands

I would like to make that heart surrender.