It was the role of a Lifetime, but she couldn’t accept.
She passed on the chance with a twinge of regret.
It was clearly off Broadway but it would have run long.
A role some would die for, but the timing was wrong.

It had started one night with a casting couch call
from a powerful man – a slob more broad than tall.
Promises whispered, but would they be kept?
Had the mega- producer enjoyed his starlet?

The review came positive in a ladies’ room stall.
Cinderella was late for more than the ball.
She who couldn’t resist, and then couldn’t complain,
now had a pregnancy she couldn’t explain.

While she thought she might, one day have a child,
surely not with this stranger, this crude *******.
A girlfriend loaned her  money;she went there alone,
She kept the appointment she’d made on the phone.

Her calves in the stirrups; her heart in denial,
The deed was done quickly in back alley style.
She nearly bled out; it was botched from the start
But the abortionist did manage to still one beating heart.

Just a face in the crowd; not a name many knew.
She had some bit parts then she faded from view.
These days her tale is on everyone’s tongue:
How the wolves of Hollywood  devour the young.