Museum of my intentions

Matthew P. Haubert

I wake up in a hotel with my conscience on the floor,
It says I talk enlightened, but I’m just a cheesy metaphor.
The minibar’s my holy water, the mirror’s quoting Freud,
I came here chasing silence, left with nothing but more noise.

The clerk smirks like I’m some prophet in a tailored suit,
But really I’m just skipping towns one rent notice from the truth.
Still I fake my depth with confidence, make nonsense sound like sense,
Talking cosmos, talking chaos, calling instinct evidence.
She said love is just a circus—I said clowns were heaven-sent,
Her laughter split my balance, cheeks like open veins of red.
We traded myths and meaning till she handed me a key,
Made love in an empty room, fogged up with our make-believe.

And if there’s meaning in the madness,
I’m always renting space—
In the museum of my intentions,
A shrine of one-night mistakes.

The lobby TV’s preaching while the plants pretend to grow,
Every city tastes the same with existential coffee to go.
Checkout hums like static, the clerk forgot my name,
I’ve seen this show before—I’ve played this losing game.

Maybe grace is just a rumor born from errors dressed as fate,
Maybe love’s a hotel bar—good lighting and a date.
Still I keep my chips in play, carve my name in wet cement,
Just to call myself an artist for my own indulgent sake.

Someday my name will haunt a library shelf of dust,
Between the almost-known and those no one thought to trust.
People like me and clerks remembered only in case files,
Footnotes in psychology, boxed away in aisles.
This maze of one-night monuments made sense at the start,
But there’s no prize, no exit—just dead ends dressed as art.
Now my roots are sinking deeper in the flaw I couldn’t face:
I built a life of movement just to never stay in place.

Today I hung my luggage in a gallery of grace,
Framed my fears and shattered them—
Nothing moved, no sound, just space.
So if redemption’s just performance, I’ll costume the display,
In the museum of my intentions,
A shrine of one-night mistakes.

If I write a letter forward that still arrives too late,
Saying “everything gets better,” ignoring what it takes—
And if I’m lost inside a god, at least I made the index page,
Cataloged as a fixed mistake.

So I dust off who I swore I’d be, blueprints curling with age,
Hang them in another room I’ll only borrow for a phase.
A new wing for my intentions, no truth in lines of fate—
And behind the desk, a new girl smiles,
And waits.