Girl With the Black Pearl Eyes

The heat of the street more than you can take hem hiked high above your bony knees spread slightly apart so you can breathe sitting in the stifling air on a stony stoop there’s no relief from the panting your face stained with sweat and bad luck the heave of your heavy breaths work against the sticky cling of your spandex dress confining your ribs with constricting fabric or maybe it’s the feeling of your shrinking skin — yes it’s hard to breathe you lick the salty trickle falling on your lips teary eyes swollen from the violence of a trick a john who didn’t see the beauty beyond the vivid blue and red against white skin — body like the American flag for Christ’s sake! but in the back-alley filth.. nobody’s patriotic scabs and bruises distract from needle tracks people only see what’s on the surface afraid to see a trembling girl hidden beneath the grime of shame and the crime of syringes and burnt spoons — you’re afraid too — to see the girl in the mirror a veiled child jailed behind the glass no.. you only see the next knot around a pulse.. your haunting dope sick eyes decades older than your nineteen years of beaten misery hollow dope sick eyes once long ago large and lustrous like black pearls until found by furious fists