The Addict

Laying in the gutter a young girl seemed asleep lamp posts look down at rats with greasy black hair sniffing at her arm people with thick overcoats walk around her murmering contaminated water of many colors creep along the curb curious stray cats come to investigate curling their bodies round the girls cold white slender leg pleading to be petted long blond hair matted like burlap cover her open blank eyes Dried blood from a needle in her lifeless arm stopped flowing after her heart gave out her bare feet caked with mud cops milling around discussing last night’s football game just another victim of drugs sirens in the distance howling like animals ready to take the girl to the waiting morgue her family’s calls to missing persons and police went unheeded.