My Kind of Place

bad weather made me pull into the gravel
driveway

off the interstate.
a red neon sign flickered, motel.
it was just outside
of a town
i never heard of. the low brick building was
carved roughly into a patch
of woods

inside the steel shadows of an iron
mountain, that seemed to be growing.

it was a bad marriage that put me
on the highway.

i kept the radio off and stewed about
my life with her.
ending each thought with a curse.
telling her to go fuck
herself.

i had one bag of essentials in the back seat.
my uncharged phone, needing a wire.

a pocket full of cash. weary and out of
tears, out of ideas, out of luck
and faith. we were past therapy, past
books and conversation, past all the bullshit
that couples do
to try and save a doomed marriage.

the house was burned down. ashes.
her thousand lies and a life of cheating
revealed to me an awful truth
about me, about her.

i was pretty much flat broke of hope
or reconciliation. not that i
wanted that. i just wanted
the pain to stop.

i sat there in my fogged car,
the wipers slapping loudly on the glass
and looked at the rain pocked
windows of the fleabag motel.

i just needed one night. i could see
the faces looking out
as my headlights streamed in.
the heavy curtains pulled back
just enough to reveal
a long line of mug shots.

it was the kind of place where murderers
hid out, drug dealers heading
south,
where women or men came to kill
themselves, sick of love,
sick of the world and what they
couldn't get out of it.

the kind of rooms where the lonely
met up with other lonely
people to have sex and smoke cigarettes
and drink bad whiskey.

nobody truly in love came here.
it's where virginity was lost, where tired
housewives
slept with handymen and local lawyers.
salesmen and whores.

my windows were rolled up tight, but
I could smell the musty beds, the shag
carpet, I could see the peeling paint
and taste the weak coffee from the machine
out in front of the alley office.

free cable, the sign said. vacancy.
hourly rates.

I turned off the car and went in.
my kind of place.