The city is my playground; or maybe my prison cell. It’s terribly cold here, but I usually don’t mind. The drugs make sure of that. I walk in the rain, makeup bleeding down my face. But it is no surprise, I’ve bled before.

My wrists tell of different times; when I still felt pain, when fire could burn me. Now the only thing that hurts is the emptiness I feel. And it only comes when I can’t find enough money to buy drugs.

People have said your body is a temple. Mine is a burned out building. I destroy what’s left of me daily, because my mind no longer allows me to care.

My arms are inked, my skin pierced. I tremble and shake, and move slowly when I walk. My lungs are exhausted from too many cigarettes; I find it difficult to breathe. But perhaps I wish that one day the air would stop coming; maybe I want to finally escape. But I couldn’t do it on purpose; maybe years ago, but I have no guts anymore. The streets have hardened me on the outside, but inside I have rotted away.

I sell my body with my friends. But they aren’t really friends. Without them however, I would have no one, so I suppose that is why I call them such.

I left my broken home when I was fifteen. It wasn’t really broken; I just saw it that way. I move my drugs and drink my beers. I hope that things will get better, but hope is dead.

My face is sunken in, and my body is skinny and frail. My hair falls out in chunks sometimes. My teeth are yellowed and my hands dirty. I think I was once beautiful, but I can’t remember anymore.

I find kids on the street, and teach them how to live like I do. I poison their minds and bodies with the drugs I sell. But it pays for tomorrow’s food, so I don’t care. I act as their makeshift mother, and they are my beautiful, tortured children. I love them, but not as people; it is a love you would show a small animal or your favorite car. They are like possessions, for getting attached to them is dangerous.

I am nineteen now, but I feel as though I have lived a lifetime. I know things I should not know, and do things I should not do. As a child I was afraid of death, but then I realized it happens no matter what we do. I know I’m going to die soon, but I will not die alone. I’ll always have my drinks and my drugs, and my not-so-forgotten skeletons. They will be with me until the end.