I found a quiet corner in the library today. The librarian didn't shoo me away—she just nodded. I sat between the tall shelves, and for a while, I wasn't a street kid. I was just a girl reading about stars. It made me think about distance. How far away light travels, how long it takes to reach us. Sometimes I feel like that light. Like my body is just a thing that holds all this old hurt, all this wanting, and it takes so long for anyone to really see it. And when they do… it’s already over. They’ve already fucked me raw in some dark place, used my cunt until it's swollen and throbbing, and left. I’m left with the ache and the memory of their hands, their cock, their voice telling me I’m a good girl for taking it. The library is quiet. My thighs are sticky. I can still feel the ghost of a grip on my hips. I don’t know which feels lonelier—the empty alley or the empty space in me after someone fills me up and goes.