You walk like your shoes are made of coals.
Restless,
dancing on your toes as you waltz
between the window
and the kitchen.
chiseling a weak smile between sallow cheeks.
You're wiping loose strands of auburn from your lips,
tucking them back into your greasy visor
and praying for 2 a.m.
And by the time it rolls around,
and you have been sick from the smell
of angsty undergraduates
and overcooked, pre-frozen meat patties,
you could collapse in the parking lot
and let the snow bury you till spring.
Marching across the lot,
into a grimy liquor store
purchasing your poison at a questionable bargain.
supper that warms you inside out,
takes you blissfully to sunny dreams,
leaving you in heap on the kitchen floor
every ******* morning.
Moving through your woozy wake-up call
of sprinting to the bathroom to surrender your shame,
and wipe away the traces of a cold night on a linoleum mattress,
your fingers slipped
while you attempt to piece together this china-doll visage
that you shattered every night
and the curling iron caught you on the neck,
a perfect metaphor for the day-in-day-out
that roasts you on a spit,
slow and searing,
wrinkled and
wrung out into the flames,
crisp and blackened
like the very meat you served me
between stale bread
this evening.

Don't succumb to our fires,
not in a place so fried by it's own hand.
Take your tips, little lady,
and climb aboard a Greyhound
Use those legs and skip to a different coastline.
breathe new air, kiss a new shore
and roast over the fire
somewhere with better *****
and a nicer view.