She felt the rocks and glass
beneath her feet.
They pinched and tugged at her skin,
pulling themselves through each layer
and burrowing in-
as if to hibernate
between her toes.
The asphalt was cold
and had a certain degree of pleasure
in its sharp, penetrating lumps.
She needed someone to hate,
or wanted someone to blame for where she was.
No, not her mother;
no, her mother did what she had to do,
and it was what she had to do
that had given her daughter that first gasping breath
which sets the course of an entire lifetime.
She stood at the corner
clenching her teeth and fists and toes,
taking turns resting one foot on the other.
Blood spotted her feet
and tickled her bones in patterns
like snowflakes:
each one different,
and like kisses:
soft.
Cars sped swiftly past,
dimming their bright lights in respect for her tired eyes.
One halted,
the door swinging ajar,
and only a pale, hairy hand presenting a one hundred dollar bill was visible,
floating ominously in the dark and grimy city air.
He washed her feet and touched her nose,
and when she woke in his bed
the pain had shifted to somewhere familiar,
somewhere that constantly ached;
empty and cold
just like a chilled beer mug.
Her ears rang when he kissed her.
Greedily, he took more.
And he touched her heart with his cold, pale fingertips
until she could no longer feel any
pain.