Pornos And Prostitutes - Poem by Erik Larson

She sits


in a room of darkness dreary
her thoughts retract

into infinite remoteness

where

she recounts visions of ponies
rainbows
butterflies happy thoughts

pigtails and ocean swimming
the simpler times

she stretches her imagination to grasp at faint joy
like clutching leaves blown in a knifing wind

Behind the stone cold of her exterior

she

remembers when it still made her
smile; the jokes, the drama, the

concealed
motives and juicy gossip........ But now

reality rushing in like ravens and vultures
noise of wings awaiting death hoverss

because nothing seems to change
the pain won't go away
dark clothes
dark room
30 years and now solitude?

and the razorblade rests
poised above
her
ivory
wrist

white like the lace
white like the sun
like the only wedding dress
she wore just for him

searing rage boils up inside her
remembering her husbands
abrupt
desertion


she didn't lose the weight fast enough after
the baby

so she was


cast off

forgotten

like a sunken ship

abandoned.


her mother, not the type given to tender speech
had said she looked beautiful in that pristine

white

dress.

the day she would be queen of his king

she sighs

whispering words with no meaning

as she hears

the little one start to cry....

she tosses the razorblade into the garbage.

Numb, she changes the baby
and begins to rock her
to swing
slightly
singing to
her only reason to live

She feels so alone
behind that plastic smile
traces of dark mood wander
and lurk hungrily
starving to pounce on and

tear her mind a part for good.

but she shudders

under the weight of this pain
the burden of a hurt so deep

of
shattered
tomorrows



because


m ommy wasn't
pretty
as those dirty pictures

mommy wasn't as curvy
pretty
as those corner dwellers

she sacrificed her figure
when she had his child
and she couldn't get it back fast enough
to
compete

so he went

out with the old

in with

the new

seduced by pictures in a magazine
and whores on a corner

their

unseeing

eyes

worth more than her

and now
the children
want to
know


where their fathers are.