Her brokenness streaks her cheeks with tears like ink

Then drips and seeps into the fabric of her jeans.

Her paper smile and bright eyes hide all she thinks:

Of washing her crimson heart-ache down the sink,

Of scars reopened before they turn velvet.

Of white smoke filling up her lungs with each deep breath.

Of her pieces united for a moment

By a burning swig of cheap wine and lost faith,

Of waking up to the wish that she had not,

Of the hidden stashes of false joy she had bought.

Her method of payment is sleeping around,

And the one time she stands she knocks herself down,

Her mind unwoven in the past battles she fought:

Ignoring the pleading tears from her mother,

Her father packed his suitcase for another;

Blue eyes and lipstick and hair softer than feathers

Filled the cavern previously occupied by her mother.

Eight months later, a new pair of little feet

Learn to walk the wet sidewalk along the street.

A home of their own was too much to keep.

Three lives fallen into a rut far too deep.

Her mother, her sister, and her.

Nomads wandering in the overcast day,

Mother selling herself to strangers for pay

For herself, her daughter, and the little one.

But a few bucks cannot pay for everyone.

Begs the question of who will skip dinner today.

Setting fire to the trash along the beaches

Huddling under the pier in sandy ditches,

Trying to find the lessons that life teaches

While her mother hunts far as the city reaches.

But real work is not easy to find,

And there is not a “help wanted” sign all the time.

So she watches her little sister while they wait,

Searching the sand for shines of pennies and dimes.

Her mother’s whereabouts were left unspoken,

‘Till days later her body is found broken.

Her tears are the only ones to leave their mark

On the fresh upturned dirt of the old graveyard.

The younger one too small to understand the burden.

Now, naked trees, mud slushing beneath her worn boots.

Carrying the heaviness of life, she stoops

And picks up her sister and walks up the steps.

She gives her last happiness to caring hands.

She watches the door close and falls to her knees.

Fist punching the concrete steps, she falls apart.

Plunged into loneliness with nothing to keep,

She roams the streets with a box of broken hearts.

One from each miserable battle.

Too many to count.