Under neon lights, she waits silently

Under neon lights, she waits silently, with paint spread on her lips and mascara running like old tears, while men pass by, hungry eyes stripping her like something forgotten, cast into the darkness of night. Her skin is not her own, but a currency, a language learned through whispers and hidden wounds. Each touch feels like another name erased, another fragment of herself she trades away just to survive. They come heavy with need, some to satisfy their burning desires, others to hide their frustrations, pockets lined with hunger, but they never see her, not the girl disgusted with herself, selling her body every night just to reach another tomorrow. She counts time in lost pieces, not in what she gains, but in what is stolen from her. And when the night finally fades, she washes the red from her lips, wipes away the scent of strangers, and looks in the mirror searching, hoping, wondering if what remains is still her. In the stream of thoughts, she loses and finds herself, like a bird searching for its wings under the barely dawning sky, in a dance of shadows and shattered hopes, she rebuilds her soul from shards of light and darkness, in a city that never sleeps but always dreams, seeking answers in the reflection that stares back with empty eyes, wondering if, perhaps, one day, she will find a place to be whole, a time to be just herself.