The Christian Louboutins, first-class flights, the Botox, dinner at Del Frisco’s, lavish parties—I could go on and on—these are all part of the lifestyle you desire.

You hate me because somehow, by the skin of my teeth, I have this.

LONELY AT THE TOP BY DONNA DALLAS 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 40

The Christian Louboutins, first-class flights, the Botox, dinner at Del Frisco’s, lavish parties—I could go on and on—these are all part of the lifestyle you desire. You hate me because somehow, by the skin of my teeth, I have this. I have seen the Duomo in Milan and inhaled the air atop Machu Picchu. I drank water from a billion-year-old glacier off the coast of Easter Island. I hold you in my heart because you knew me when I was bone-thin snorting coke with Vito in Lonni’s After Hours Bar. I was wearing fake patent pumps and wetnwild ninety-nine-cent lipstick. I am lucky I escaped from the ghetto that sucked the youth and life from us, sucked us bone dry.

Some are dead, some numb, others living in a one-room back in East New York peddling their ass for crack, smack, or crank. I was spared from lice-infested beds and dirty crack whores who beat the shit ou…