cheap hotel: a poem

my body is a hotel full of guests who do not pay their bill

room 1 houses a boy who wraps his hands around my throat as he asks about my father

whispers from next door ask him if he is really afraid to die

they seem to come from inside the foundations of the building

and his upstairs neighbours are always banging on the floor in the hopes that he will notice them

my walls want to cave in on themselves

and the dining room is always full of monsters

bathroom drains clogged with hair and piss, pipes moaning in fear

i am filling up and it is terrifying

a sick, sick man is squatting in the basement 

all of my residents know, but nobody says anything

out of politeness or fear 

until it is too late, until 

he has breathed his infection into the air

then transferred into the lungs of my occupants

using me as a conduit