same hallway, same fluorescent buzz, the same recycled smell,
but somewhere past the tenth year or the fifteenth he forgot
to check back out. The lobby closed. He is still on his cot.
The walls have memorized the shape of how he tends to lean,
the mattress holds his silhouette in places no one has seen,
the ceiling has a water stain that looks like his left hand,
and the man who stayed too long no longer tries to understand.
The man who stayed too long has worn a groove into the floor,
the man who stayed too long cannot remember what the door
was for, the handle cold and strange beneath his fingertips,
the world outside is someone else’s story on their lips.
He eats the same three meals in rotation, never deviates,
the fork goes left, the knife goes right, the napkin folds in eights,
the television talks to him in voices he half-knows,
he answers it sometimes at night when no one is there and no one goes
to check because the neighbors learned to let the channel run.
He is the longest-staying guest. He is the only one.
The wallpaper has started matching patterns on his skin,
the floral print repeating where the shoulders have grown thin.
The man who stayed too long has worn a groove into the floor,
the man who stayed too long cannot remember what the door
was for, the handle cold and strange beneath his fingertips,
the world outside is someone else’s story on their lips.
His license photo shows a younger, wider face,
the kind of man who moved through rooms and did not leave a trace.
Now every surface holds him, every corner knows his weight,
the room has become the man and the man has become the crate
that houses what is left of the trajectory he lost.
He pulls the curtain shut against the light at any cost,
because the light reveals the distance between then and here,
and the man who stayed too long has made a home inside his fear.