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Denise

Pink Elephant

It would be my disease of addiction.
Everybody knows about it but nobody talks about it,
so it is the pink elephant in the living room.
Everyone is walking around and over and under it
and totally forgetting that this thing is an obstacle.
No one talks about it, they just walk around it.
So that person is just enabled to use
rather than someone opening up dialogue about it
and getting rid of it.

Like a Lion in Wait
I’ve been hearing in the news
a lot of the young women being manipulated.
When I see something like that
I do something about it,
kicking the younger ones off the street.
I don’t think anyone knows what it’s like
and what you have to do to get a fix
when you’re hurting.
It becomes a cycle
and some people down here die.
I’ve seen young girls being manipulated by males,
boyfriends that have been pimping them out.
But they don’t see them as pimps.
That’s really odd.
And the first thing they do after they’re done a date
he’s standin there with his hand out
waiting for the money she just worked her ass off to make.
And god knows what she had to do for that buck
and he didn’t do anything but wait around.
He could care less about her health and safety
and that’s just the way it is.
At first they don’t see that.
They come off as caring and loving,
but that’s the last thing they have on their mind.
She’s just a tool to get him high
So I would say
be careful.
It starts out real innocent,
‘Oh no, I don’t want any money from my girlfriend.
She gives it to me willingly.’
And then after awhile
he comes to expect it and beats her
because she didn’t make so much money.
It’s unfortunate that the girls don’t see that.
It's ‘like a lion in wait’.

The Hardest Thing
How much of myself I am giving up
How obvious it is, my need for drugs
I think that’s very obvious to everyone
that sees me standing on the corner.
when you were a kid, what were your dreams:
I wanted to be a nun. (smiles)

A nun?!
Yeh I did.
You’ve come to the wrong place! (Both laugh)
(Then seriously)
Well, as a product of incest,
I probably didn’t have much chance
of becoming a real nun anyway,
but that’s what I always wanted to be.
I always thought that God would protect me.
Pretty idealistic.
What about your dreams now?
They are a little more realistic, but
sometimes they are so far away
that they are overwhelming
and I don’t know where to start
Is there anything you think
they need down here to help women?
More housing for women.
I see more housing and more opportunities
for men down here than women.
It’s unbalanced and it’s not fair.
Have you gone to the detox here?
Yeh I did.
Was it hard to get in?
I had to call everyday, twice a day . . .
to get in . . . for a week.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know so much down here.
I wish it wasn’t so comfortable
but it’s my life now

It’s my lifestyle
and I know to change is a lot of work.
It was a lot of work to get this far,
it’s going to be a lot of work to back track.
Mainstream society seems so far away from me.

Black-and-white photo by Chris Young

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