All photos are from Flickr.com and are not photos of the girl about whom the story is written.
November 4, 2006
She remembers the very first time she cried,
how she wiped her eyes
and buried the pain inside.
All the memories, good and bad,
of her brother are past.
She just stares at the cracks in the walls,
waitin’ for it all to come to an end.
She wants to curl up right under the bed,
cuz it’s takin’ over her head.
Lyin’ awake in the blackness of the night,
she counts the rings ‘round her eyes.
What was that shit that hit Chicago streets?
Did it really take her brother away?
She pushes the world aside.
She doesn’t wanna feel the pain.
She doesn’t even wanna try.
She’s lookin’ for a way to become,
the person she dreamt of when she was sixteen.
Does she know who she really is?
Maybe a Superstar?
Or is she just a crack whore?
A year ago, shapely and sweet,
her breasts were full and firm.
But the shit hit the streets,
and took her brother for keeps.
Today she’s skinny, angular, and grey,
her shapeliness gone with her brother.
But the track marks remain.
Her car’s gone,
Sold to buy more shit.
Unlike the pain,
Hope no longer remains.
She stops at a friend’s for a quick shower,
on her way to a two hour appointment.
But where will the money go?
What will she have to show?
Her friend Angie’s sister just died,
but Angie can’t go to the funeral, just 300 miles away.
There’s no money for Angie’s drug of choice,
and Angie has no connections down there.
Will Angie miss her sister’s funeral?
Or will Angie go while enduring the pain of withdrawal?
Maybe the phone will ring!
Maybe some john will need a call!
She heard that Maggie’s not with Ace,
that Ace is in Cook County Jail.
Her friend wonders where Maggie could be,
but no longer really cares.
He knows that Mika is safe at home in northern Wisconsin,
while Maggie awakens with a nightmare,
the nightmare that is her life!
After the shower, getting dressed,
she mentions that she can no longer sleep.
Her friend knows full well
that a little girl, ever so young,
full of heroin and crack,
ravaged by the death of a younger brother,
losing weight,
in a downward spiral,
is a flower that will not blossom,
is a flower with little hope.
Walking her to the door,
her friend wishes her well.
He hopes the impossible hope
of her redemption.
Does salvation await?
Is she a flower
past her spring?
Is her summer
now just a memory?
Is autumn the shortest season
of them all?
Note – A load of adulterated heroin hit the west side of Chicago this summer. I believe it came from Detroit. I heard that it was treated to increase its potency, but instead became lethal. It took the little girl’s brother.
Chicago’s deaths from heroin rose from a few a week to the mid-thirties per week.
The photo of the little girl sitting on the porch in the golden light is a photo of a little girl whose mother is a real crack whore and is a photo of the place where the two live.
