Throughout my university experience, I have been inspired by a lot of stories dealing with human trafficking. As someone studying Sociology, a lot of my classes look into this issue. Here is a poem that was written about a girl who becomes tricked into human trafficking. It was originally published in print by the Regis Magazine’s arts edition. Enjoy.
Welcome to the City
Welcome to the city where everything is fancy.
Those were the words I once heard.
Welcome to the core where you will live forevermore.
The bright lights once sparked my imaginative dreams;
but, those dreams were crushed in an instant, it seemed.
False promises, false hope.
He is a hustler,
a persuasive flesh-peddler,
a man who took my foolish dreams
and conditioned me to become
a girl with a body
ready
to meet another’s.
It did not take long to understand what “your turf” meant.
I left my home to pursue a new, fairytale life,
but he stole it.
It was beyond my control,
beyond the control of anyone
but him.
It kills me to think about what he made me do,
what I was absolutely, undeniably, forced into.
Pushed into the life of
selling myself,
so that I had nothing left
to offer.
Now I’m just a bare, bruised
“bad girl.”
Something I never thought I’d be.
And on most nights
I run back to my shady apartment
with the blackest of eyes.
Paint-chipped walls,
and shadows on every surface,
the dim, flickering light
makes my head hurt.
I never feel safe
so I cry
because I only desire one thing,
one of my mom’s old hugs.
The old embrace of someone loving and dear.
I remember
her petite, hardworking hands
wrapping around my body
to make me feel secure.
She was always proud of my grades.
I learned well by the book
but my social experience lacked.
So I was
tricked
too easily.
How did my life turn out like this?
How did I end up here?
Stuck, lost, broken.
I have no chance of escape
because every dollar I earn for my body
doesn’t end up being my own money to take.
So now,
here I live
a world of torturous evenings,
with the most gruesome of men.
I often wonder,
what is chivalry?
What is respect?
I know none of these concepts,
for I am undeserving.
Or at least
that is what I am told now.
And in my twin, sheetless bed,
I am taken back to a place,
a place never forgotten.
I see my mother
with her light, brown hair
tied tightly in a bun
while she stirs a ladle in a pot
and she smiled when she asks,
Come try a taste.
A place where
the smell of sauce
fills my nostrils,
and my mouth waters
for what I know will be
the most deserving of meals
that I am lucky to share
with a table full of people so dear to me.
Yet, here I am
in this room shared by ten
with no meals to split.
And here I lay,
with an empty, bruised body,
but no one to fix the pain.
And in my future,
when I am no longer
young enough to be
desired,
I will finally escape,
and I will tell a clueless girl
what the city life is truly about,
“Welcome to the city,”
I will say,
“where you witness the workings of hell.
Where you lose yourself
and your dreams become something to sell.
Welcome to the core,
where your life will become nothing more
than property, an ownership,
of someone more persuasive
than anyone, you’ll ever meet.
Run away now,
don’t ever look back.
There is more out there for you,
and this life is not it.
God has a plan,
a great one might I add,
just take the right steps.
Don’t let them catch you,
or you will regret your coming past.
Make something of yourself,
become successful,
because you can,
and if you do,
darling, I promise
you will shed no tears.”
Originally published by The Regis Magazine: Arts printed edition
Featured image via Hernan Sanchez on Unsplash
