She’s been trying to
break away from it for
months now

Keeps coming to my
house and
sitting on the mattress in
the back room
Telling me how
this ain’t the lifestyle she wants to
be keeping
How the people she meets
are nothing
but the drugs that they take
That she’s afraid of the way
her hair looks dirty
to strangers on the street

How she’s really gotta split
break the scene up/
study for a degree/
play on the weekends/
outside of this city

Tonight she tells me about
her plan to
throw dinner parties
where wine is the greatest
deterrent
to it all
How she’s no longer going
to answer the 3am calls
from the boys across the
street,
wanting a cute
young thing to do lines with
when the only sound in the night
are their noses
down a run way with a
dollar note

Tells me she dreams of
the nearest city
calling her

And I sit silently as
I always do with
her
Knowing that
when the next weekend comes
she’ll be sitting with the boys
grabbing at anything
that’s offered to her
and seeing the sun
come up with strangers
in
a West End back yard
where she starts to
hustle for her next cheap fix
and a taxi ride home.