A One Eyed Hooker

She stands where sodium lights refuse to stay,
A broken halo trembling on her skin;
One eye still fixed on what won’t look away,
The other gone to something carved within.
No story told, just fragments she won’t keep,
A name discarded somewhere down the drain;
Her laughter scratches shallow, never deep,
A habit trained to imitate the sane.
The men arrive like weather, cheap and fast,
They do not ask what any scar might mean;
They take their proof that something still can last,
Then leave her less than what she’s ever been.
She counts the notes, then stares through what is true,
Half blind, yet seeing what they pay to lose.