The Breaking Point

The Breaking Point

His hand across her face with a sharp crack

            Pale, bleeding and resigned.

He kicks her in the ribs and she cries out
     The mental anguish far worse that the bruise

                  The desperation of an addict using
               Against her will

                   Dope sick without it, dying with it

     Foxhole prayers and gas station rendezvous

Diesel fuel and body fluids
      Shame and degradation

                             He is a wooly mammoth lying on top of her

       The desire to lay her head on the pillow of hair on his chest
      Instead she feels thick, doughy fingers pawing at her
     There is no mistaken this for love
      A service provided for payment of some sort

One more fix.

Chase the high, immortality
     Feelings of power and inferiority
     Emaciated, dirty needles, blistered lips
     The smell of peppermint

                            Her hair sticks up like little yellow maggots

Continual fear and constant tears
      Life in the alley
      Smells like the dumpster
      Behind Mr. Jessup’s Butcher Shop
      On a sunny, July afternoon

                                 Desperation pulses like sexual energy in the air

        The halo of gnats dance around her head
      The sound of feral children close by


       The smell of dust, wet cardboard
      The crinkle of cellophane and terse, barked orders
      The warehouse workers unaware
      Slow death beyond their walls
      The thick fence between the church and the alley
      Covered in grime and moss
      Won't one person reach out and save her?