Her Name Was Lucy: the Girl On the Corner

I watch for her after midnight's twelve strokes, often thinking how life likes to play cruel jokes. Stilettos clicked on pavers as she walked a nod on the stairs, but we'd never talked. Eyes smudged with black liner, like bars on a cell, She always returns looking like she's been through hell. I knew her name was Lucy. I heard him yell at her last night. She trembled past me in the hallway, teary eyes full of fright. Midnight lady, short skirts, and pouting ruby lips, street corners for an office as she swings her hips. I saw her in the morning light when she walked out the door. Fresh face, pink cheeks scrubbed clean, and nothing more. In jeans and baggy t-shirt, she looked like an innocent child, not the kind of woman who got paid to drive men wild. Lucy - if I tried to rescue you what would you think of that? Would you have to worry about the guy who wears the fancy hat? No one can own another, so I'd like to make an offer to you. I'll buy you a ticket to anywhere if you tell me you're through. I'm just a stranger, but I know who and what you are... too young and beautiful to live a life that's so bizarre. I've never gotten over how guilty it made me feel for living that life while pretending nothing was real. I'm offering you the way to get out the mess you're in, a life of danger, a tangled web of emotional sin. Dear Lucy, I'm leaving this note and money under your door because I don't wanna see you around here anymore. I wish someone had given me the chance to be free then maybe I could forgive myself for what I used to be. You don't know who I am, and it really doesn't matter. My name once was Lucy, before I was bruised and battered. Long ago I had a daughter that I was forced to give away. I'll regret the choice I made until my breath fades away. Signed: Someone who cares Someone who dares I prayed this Lucy was not the daughter I had born. In her faded jeans and baggy t-shirt she had worn, I watched her walk away with all she owned flung over her shoulder. I knew she'd have a better life than I had by the time she was older. As a tree, my limbs are broken and brittle. My life not worth a dime. But if she is my fallen apple, out of the gutter I must help her climb.