Night-time Lover

She was the kind of girl that tried too hard.

She sold her soul daily for a little affection, a kind glance, a sweet smile.

She didn't realize it, and no one around had the decency

To stop her from making a fool of herself.

So she kept on trying to impress those who didn't care

With cheap tricks and jokes she herself barely understood.

She smiled at strangers, throwing honeyed glances around,

And told everyone that she liked this and enjoyed that,

Trying to find common ground in an uneven world.

She's grin around every bland mouthful,

Moaning

Faking her enjoyment of the act.

But lying in bed at night, having brushed her teeth a dozen times,

The salty-bitter aftertaste still lingered at the back of her throat.

In the early hours, her enthusiastic lies would slide off her face

Like a cheap carnival mask, crumbling in the moonlight,

And terror would squeeze her in its grasp.

She was alone.

...that was the thing that scared her most of all.

Not the Johns that came to her when she bent over to say hello,

revealing her cleavage in hopes of enticing them enough to follow her.

Those shallow, lecherous men with cigarette breath

And calloused fingers that tugged, probed, and prodded her with insistent need.

Nor the slow trickle of men who shoved their way through her life,

Angry, abusive men, drinkers and maimers,

Like her father, the bastard, who beat her mother and her countless times

Leaving both bruised and bloodied, and cradling each others' broken bodies.

No, the loneliness was worst of all.

It was with her always, roiling underneath the surface,

Easily enough suppressed during the day when she consciously tried to,

But excruciatingly persistent at night.

There, always there. Waiting for her to put her guard down.

It gnawed at her, curling up like a lover next to her in bed,

Stroking her skin, touching her in places the others never tried to reach.

It made her feel special, the way no man had before.

That feeling coated her skin like a layer of oil,

The kind of dirty sensation unlike any other,

The kind that her compulsive washing could never erase.

It lit her heart on fire, the pain of it lacing the blood pumping through her.

It made her shake with need and deep-rooted tears leaked from her eyes.

It stayed with her all night,

Until she could see the first rays of sun tickle the rooftops across from her window.

Then it crept out, like a lover realizing that it was time to go,

Leaving the bed empty, and her emptier still.

Alone again. Forsaken.

Photo copyright Vivi Kalomiri