Room of flowers,
room of hunger: the hours
I could sleep inside.
There was something I wanted
my life to be. Room
in which I possessed someone
and was in turn possessed.
Rooms in which I reached for a man,
even when he
was with someone else.
Once I was so scared,
I slept in my shoes.
Another time, I stood knee-deep
in chlorinated water
and thought I’d be lost
forever: the graffiti
unintelligible, the smell
of cigarettes, the foreign tongues.
Still, the jets of the whirlpool pulsated.
I dried off; I made
the damp towel a pillow.
The crowded rooms
of the bars made them cool.
Young people were shouting
into my ears.
I was growing up,
like them and not
like them.
In the tall mirror,
I could see my back.