A Thousand Words

Cigarette ashes spread all over the paved streets.

Flashing lights set on billboards atop hypnotizing and prominent skyscrapers.

Taxi cabs and seemingly obtrusive mass of pedestrians rush past in an assorted chaos.

…

There she was.

Just a speck of unnoticeable dust in a pile of overpowering grains of sand.

You could see the dirt-strung leather strap that barely covered the curves of her breasts.

A scrap of cheap cloth made up the barely-there skirt, displaying a pair of what in other circumstances would be killer legs, but at that moment exhibited an almost invisible display of stretch marks from having grown up too fast.

Tasteless red ink tinted her lips, displaying a mouth that had been chastised and rebuked for a better part of her life.

Sunken blue eyes that should have sparked with a certain entrancing gleam just laid back in pure surrender.

There used to be passion in those eyes.

There used to be dreams and hopes for an indescribable future, endless goals, and a never-ending resolution.

But that unending resolution came to an unexpected halt.

Selling her body for money, respect drifted out the window along with other useless scraps of debris.

Just as the seemingly tied-up love for life ran off in speeds that reached places unknown, never found again.

She had succumbed to the world of heroine, useless promises, and selfish wants.

And look where that got her.


A hand clutches my arm.


I turn away from the painting.


“Honey, it’s just a painting, New York in all its amazing, star-lit glory. No need to drift into cardiac arrest.”

She starts dragging me away, my imagination being hauled along with me.

A pictures is worth a thousand words.

I make it worth more.