Door clicks once.
Room goes red.
Angel in the hallway,
devil in the bed.

I know the step count from the elevator,
know which board moans near the minibar.
You leave your earrings by the Gideon drawer,
like two small moons from a guilty star.
We don’t say love.
We say later.
We say careful with the lipstick paper.
Your laugh goes low, and the city leans,
black car waiting with the engine mean.
I had a clean thought.
You broke it.
I had a vow and you smoked it.
Now my hands learn heat from your waistline,
mouth full of yes with a closed-blind bassline.
Every clock in the room turns traitor,
every saint in my head goes quiet.
I call it fate till the sweat dries off—
then the silence reads back the riot.

Heaven before,
hell after.
Sweet on the tongue,
ash on the laughter.
I want the flame.
I hate the disaster.
Heaven before,
hell after.

Morning comes rude through a half-shut curtain,
your perfume sharp on the cheap white sheet.
I stare at my shirt like it did the hurting,
one button gone, one sleeve asleep.
You don’t look back.
That’s mercy.
Or maybe shame got there early.
I rinse my mouth at the bathroom sink,
taste your name where I tried not to think.
What kind of hunger hates its mirror?
What kind of thirst spits in the glass?
I swear off fire with smoke in my hair,
then save the matchbook like an autograph.
Downstairs lobby got flowers in water,
front desk smiling like nobody knows.
I walk outside in last night’s weather,
sun on my face like a witness rose.

Heaven before,
hell after.
Sweet on the tongue,
ash on the laughter.
I want the flame.
I hate the disaster.
Heaven before,
hell after.

Before, I’m silver.
After, I’m rust.
Before, I’m holy.
After, I’m dust.
Before, your door
is a choir of skin.
After, my chest
won’t let me back in.

Heaven before,
hell after.
Sweet on the tongue,
ash on the laughter.
I chased the flame.
I fed the disaster.
Heaven before,
hell after.

Door clicks twice.
Daylight wins.
I leave clean-looking
with the room still on my skin.