Growing up in a professional welfare clan-
brothers and sisters spit out on a ten month plan
because more kids mean more government dole;
no doubt nurture not nature defined your role.
Not much room for love in the midst of that screaming-
it's natural as you grew up of escape you'd start dreaming.
Older sisters established a means to an end,
their reputation shady, with lots of male friends.
You made it to high school and within the year
with a beautiful body and no sense of fear
you found that small actions could help you get far
with a substitute for love in the back of a car.
You worked hard at your craft, sex for money your profession
and as time went on, booze and drugs became an obsession.
You worked the social systems to get all the money you could-
cruised all the 'anonymous' groups to find men that "would"..
But as years passed on your looks began to fade.
Too bad you didn't save any of that money you made.
Now living in public housing, on food stamps, no plan-
and still turning tricks whenever you can.
So is a life wasted if it doesn't make a sound?
Does life suit you well in that niche that you found?
You have no life skills, so lay lady lay
as your grey life fades into grey sunset each day.
Author notes
Option 16: a poem about prostitutes
This is based on a true story; one of my classmates. Katherine is not her real name, of course, and it truly is sadder than my words could convey.
So what! I don't know everything!
A contest entry
- Question here, A riddle there, who knows what I am thinking by LadyOfFate.
450 points, ended July 11, 2008, 16 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Courtesans of All Countries; Prostitutes of All Professions = Feminism? by Avatar of Innocence.
1300 points, ended July 6, 2008, 11 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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Wow...I am becoming hooked on your writing....
THIS is truly different from what I have read by you already....I love this too...nice variety in your poetry.
This particular piece is engrossing from the start and it unfolds perfectly to the sad ending. Seriously good stuff here.
( why the double spaces though?? in the shorter writes I get it, but is there a reason for it here? Are you looking for longer pauses in the flow of the read? )
Jamie
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Yes. ;)
It certainly is a "sad" story.
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Powerful final stanza. Good Job you.
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that is sad and very fimular, I told a simular story to some girls I knew just to get them to stop hoaring themselves out since I knew they could do better, didn't think it was real. oh well. good luck
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I think we all use what we have to get by in this world, in your friends case it was her body, mine is organizational skills, yours computer knowledge.
You've written a good poem telling us of her life, which is true of many. The last two lines sum up the whole piece for me.
All the best in the contest...Sue
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This is sad and more common than you can even realize. I've known many "Katherines" in my short time on this earth. And who is to blame for girls ending up like this? Who made them this way? Bad parenting? Society giving up? Maybe all of them. She wasn't taught right. No one cared.
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