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

and 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 up the scene

study for a degree

play on weekends

outside of this town

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

Where the only sound in the night

are noses

down a run way

with a $50 note.

Tells me she dreams

of the other 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

in some bar stranger’s back yard

grabbing at anything that’s offered to her

waiting for the

sun come up

Sitting in the lap of

the new young boy

who’s sporting a pocket full

of that white powdered goodness

Where she’ll be straddling him

like a dirty and torn Bukowski novel

Her thighs screaming at the moon

hustling for

that cheap fix

and a taxi ride home.