Working girl

A poem about the reality in the life of a working girl

Working Girl

By Shawn P Cassidy

She moves through the city like a warning in the night,

a shadow built from battles she never chose to fight.

The streets don’t dare to name her,

they turn away instead,

as if the truth she carries

might expose what they’ve shed.

She is hunger in a heartbeat,

a pulse against the frost,

a story carved in alley walls

counting everything she’s lost.

Men pass through her like storms that never break,

leaving rust inside her breathing

and poison in their wake.

Their fingerprints don’t fade,

they settle deep and stay,

the kind of marks that echo

long after they walk away.

Her pride is a pill she swallowed

just to keep herself alive.

Her body is a shelter

for a soul that can’t revive.

No cradle. No comfort.

No mercy in her climb,

just the rhythm of survival

keeping time after time.

The pipe offers mercy.

The needle offers rest.

The city offers nothing

but a weight upon her chest.

Heroin hums softly,

a voice of ash and bone,

calling her toward the darkness

she once vowed to face alone.

She is the bruise beneath the neon,

the truth beneath the lies,

a girl made out of quiet

with a woman in her eyes.

She studies constellations

no one else will claim,

earning her degree in stars

that never learned her name.

Not a sinner. Not a saint.

Just a spirit left unfinished

in a world that will not paint.

A working girl, a wandering flame.

A symbol of every life

the world refused to claim.

© 2026 Shawn P. Cassidy. All rights reserved