Residue

She is a glass doll

Stunning in the light, brittle lashes and lifeless eyes

Her slick curves, angles, cold to the touch

Until they’ve been greased with prints

Familiar hands know every line, could trace these planes in darkness

Drawing forth memory of each previous encounter,

All dalliances with dust and dirt forgotten as she is loved now by someone’s sticky hands

Wet with sweetness wiped from the corners of young lips

The kind of hands that are never clean,

That plainly show where they’ve been

Leaving trails of new care and old saliva as they trickle their way over her surface

Feeling scars feathered so carefully they were surely placed there on purpose

Perhaps in anger, or simply carelessness, nearly both the same

In their blatant disregard of her worth: you are nothing:

These cracks scream

To be so easily abused this way

But fingers damp from moistened mouths feel none of this.

They search eagerly instead for the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her neck

Reveling in the reflection of ecstasy on her face, recognizing an eye or lip

Claiming it, for now, knowing later she must be relinquished

And someone will have to wash her of the stains these filthy hands have left