Looking for a saviour under the stars

Men slow then stop their cars.

Girls under street lamps stand

Waiting for their lord’s command.

Needle pricks scar their arms

Still men discern a certain charm.

Girls think of their next fix

Man moistens his dry lips.

“I seek a saviour of a kind

In the hope some inner peace I may find”

He says shuddering at her needle lines.

“Your saviour I will be

Provided you can pay my fee.

A girl must live. Love isn’t free”,

She says gazing at a distant tree.

She thinks of her girlhood not so long ago

Of trees their boughs bent under the weight of snow.

She thinks “once I could not be bought

Before hard drugs their damage rought”.

The man holds out cold hard cash

She takes it with a bitter laugh.

Stepping in through the car’s open door

She wonders if she can take much more.

Her eyes fixed on the stars above

As he makes what he calls love.

She thinks of the knife at home

How easy to end it when all alone.

The pain is there behind his eyes

Inwardly two souls cry.

He stares at the moon above

Desperately probing for a kind of love.

Afterwards two empty vessels they depart

Both with sore and aching hearts.