Little Junky Cheesecake

... was his little friend… or she wasn't.

She often came hungry to his flat,

Smoking hard on a discarded fag.

Then she took his money, booze, drugs -

And gave him sod-all back.

She took his naïve trust… no!

She gave him one thing: a little street-wisdom.

Did she use him good?

Was there even an atom-sized speck of love

In her sponging heart?

Could he have known? 
Did he want to know?

Yet he liked her... loved her... perhaps.

The why of his love?... 
Scrutiny would kill it.

One evening, hand almost in hand (discretion still ruled),

They walked Keighley's streets to a pub that stank like a pub.

(Its customers were easy-come-easy-go.

Who needs hygiene when the booze is cheap?)

Once in the dark pub, 

She dripped methadone spit into a dead beer-glass.

Then, in an acute silence by a jukebox,

She fell into a stupor.

She spited the R ‘n’ B’s sleaze 

Ejaculated into her own glitzless truth.

The wasted woman’s lower lip and jaw hung down.

In silence, too, he sat beside her - deep in cutting shame.

The others didn’t notice the out-of-it lass,

Or the fool’s embarrassment.

Then her boyfriend came 

With a Liam Gallagher swagger.

He’d heard, on the junk-vine, 

That his woman was straying

With a bloke small enough to sort out.

Then out came his feeble blade.

He fought with a smackhead's strength.

Then off she went with her man.

She’d often spun a line: “He thinks he owns me.”

But the strutting friend did own her… more or less.

And this, to her, didn’t matter… much.

He was her foulmate.

Her extra rotten hand.

And, most of all, her trusted pusher.

So compassion-man stayed on his sad tod.

Alone but for his soothing frustrations.

Was this drugged-up girl his own Mills and Boon whore?

Did he want to better her?

To show her the right way to a better world?

But his world wasn’t hers.

And her world wasn’t his.

Was he patronizing or humoring her?

He saw himself, in some way, as her superior.

He didn’t look straight down at her...

Surely he thought himself better!

Even when he hid it from her credulous mind

And his own self-protecting veil.

He knew well the truth of his sponger’s less-than-rosy truth.

Fuck no! Compassion and care aren’t proxies for love.

He must have known his true-love to be sick-love.

Known that all true-love is sick-love.