The Skeletons of Room 306

 

Lindsey Beth Goddard

 

I dedicate this poem to room 306 of the

Days Inn motel of West Des Moines, Iowa,

Where I lost my mind, then found it

One Halloween night, after old skeletons

Followed me like stowaways on my road trip,

Rattling their bones and snapping their jaws

In wordless gestures until they filled the air

With unspoken, scathing scrutiny and I

Fell apart, just a pile of dead remains, like those

Skeletons after shuffling into room 306 with me.

Three hundred and twenty-five miles of gray highways

To nowhere, those skeletons rode in my SUV, and when

I parked and got out, they climbed from the

Back seat, the trunk, and the passenger side,

And walked along with me. Because you can’t

Leave all your skeletons at home, not every time you try,

For sometimes they refuse to stay behind.

Those stowaways of my past, those dead versions of me,

Those ones I’d left behind but never set free,

They watched me pay and get my motel key and then

They surrounded and cornered me in room 306, staring

With vacant eye sockets, bony fingers reaching, mouths open

In silent screams, until we fell apart into a messy heap

Of who we once were and who we came to be.

Then, painstakingly, using pieces of me, I put myself

Together again, digging the best parts from the debris,

And in that room, I left housekeeping a mess no one could see,

Because in 306, I think the skeletons which haunted me

Were defeated that Halloween and finally rest in peace,

And now that room's a mausoleum, a catacomb of regret

And sin, full of the shallow graves of ghostly, grief-stricken

Skeletons, their old bones just a strange sensation, the hollow notes

of a song forgotten, a passing chill to any guests within.

​

      Lindsey Beth Goddard is a tortured poet and dark fiction author living in Missouri, whose work has been published in e-zines such as  Exquisite Death, Carnage House, and Gamut, as well as in anthologies such as Error Code and The Asylum of Terror 1 & 2. Her work has also been performed on popular podcasts like Creepy Podcast and Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. She is the author of four short story collections, two poetry books, and a novel, Ashes of Another Life. For more information, visit LindseyBethGoddard.com.