She was not even old enough to know 

The first time she was sold.

 
Men would come; 

Men would go. 
She could only come; 

She could never go.

 
She always did what she was told, 

So that she would not be sold 

to an even worse man, 

One somehow even worse than the one she already had. 
 

She had to listen 

To survive. 
She would rather have been dead 

Than alive.

 

She was a slave

Every day.
She had no name,

No birthday. 
 

She had no family, 

No friends. 
She barely had life, 

But she knew that could so easily end. 
 

No one out there knew what they were doing. 
No one out there could see or hear her crying.

No one out there knew the signs. 

 No one out there saw the anguish in her mind 

Or the shame that was her life.

 

Her mother, 

Her sister, 

Both sold, 

Both gone.

 

Her father, 

Her brothers, 

Both buying, 

Both there. 
 

For so many days, 

She would stay, 

Waiting 

For men

With bad intent

In complete silence.

 

Talking was what bad girls did;

Bad girls were dead.

 

To be good, 

That was how a girl got to live.
To be bad,

That was how a girl got killed.

 

Good girls,

They did not fight,

Or

They fought no more.

 

Bad girls,

They never stopped fighting,

Or

They did-

Only when they were dead- 

Or

When the fight was taken out of them, 

By the owner and all the other men.

 

Girls were broken

By hordes of evil men

In many ways.
Yet,

They were the ones

Who were ordered

And forced

And made

To feel ashamed,

If they could still feel something

And had not been made numb 

To all human contact

And to even the roughest touch.

 

Girls like her,

Men come to ‘know.’
They say they ‘ Love you.’

They say you are ‘ like their own,’

Though

They lust for you,

And you are owned

For however long they want you,

For their own.

 

Once they leave-  

Once they are free-

You are depleted,

Cast from their mind's thoughts like a leaf off its tree,

Never to be seen by their eyes again,

Only to be forgotten

And left on the pile of all the others-

The worthless,

The hopeless,

The faceless,

The Loveless.

 

Once they let themselves out of the room,

They forget you.
Their minds are short-lived;

They do not remember the faces of the captive,

The ones they went in,

The ones who yearn for freedom.

 

Property,

Plaything,

Object,

Nothing.

 

Girls like her,

Girls turned into slaves,

Whose individual images are conjured

For the collective underworld of the sex trade,

Girls made to be any age,

Girls made to perform on the same stage- 

The stage of the streets,

The stage of the net,

The stage of forced meats,

The stage of a hotel room bed,

The stage of a house,

Wear a ‘ father’ and a ‘ husband’ sells his spawn and his wed,

The stage of a car,

Wear a ‘ Romeo boyfriend’ sells his branded ‘ Juliet,’

or any other set,

Where evil is not only aided,

But abetted.

 

Wherever predators swarm,

Prey is sent.
Wherever violation and evil lurk,

Innocence and good are dispensed

Like water that flows

Down into that bottomless pit of nothingness,

Never to be resurrected,

As its victims,

Now run dry of their worth,

Suffer in silence

On this cruel earth.

 

She never knew any amount

Of money they paid.
No matter what the amount,

Their minds had long ago  been made.

 

She did know

Without a shadow of a doubt,

Without a single drop of faith,

Or a faint flicker of spirit's flame,

Or a bit of hope in change,

That she would always be a slave.

 

Everything was controlled;

Nothing was left to chance.
everything was so sorrowfully dulled;

She could never have the freedom to dance.

 

She stands at the cracked window,

Longing for a world she can only see.
A man comes from behind her,

Snatching her away from that fleeting beauty.

 

He is her master,

For however long he paid.
He is her devil,

Never caring if the people he hurt ever played- 

Stealing,

And beating,

And raping,

And killing,

And doing

All other forms of evil's urges known to man.

 

She oh so badly wants this to end;

It has only just begun.
He is the only one,

Who will be having anything close to fun.

 

She knows

In her bones

That she will never be allowed out of this room.

As the man squeezes the life from her,

She wonders,

‘God, are you there?’

 

The man leaves,

Still very much free.
The owner walks in,

Calmer than a still tree.

 

He is not angry

At the man who took her life.
He is not sorry

That she has died.

He knows

In his two strong bones

That he can find another girl- 

One better,

Newer,

Cleaner,

Fresher,

Than her.

 

It can be replaced

In his brain.
The ‘New one’ Will be a slave,

A slave of rape,

A slave of hate,

A slave of pain,

One who ‘gains’

For the owner and his men,

But mostly,

For Satan and his angels.

 

The man who murders 

Never gives a murmur

Of remorse,

Of regret,

Of a new course,

Of sadness.

 

In his heart heart,

There is nothing wrong.
It does not rip him apart

That another girl is gone,

By his hand.

 

There is no service,

No priest.
There is no reverence,

No fleet

Of those things,

That we free people each call the hearse 

Because slaves' deaths are cursed

By no regard,

By no recall.

 

No one out there knows that she is gone.
No one out there knows to shed a tear.
No one out there even knew that there was someone,

Someone they can no longer here.

 

The buyers and slaves in here do not miss her;
No one in here bats an eye.
No one in here really knew her for her;

It does not matter to any of them that she died.

 

Life goes on

For those,

Who buy,

For those,

Who sell.

Life is forever stopped

For her,

Who was bought,

For her,

Who was sold.

 

No one anywhere saw the signs.
No one anywhere saw that something was amiss.
How many hers will have to die,

 Before our ears will be willing to listen?

 

What will it have to take

For our hands to break the chains?
What will it have to be

To make our eyes see?
What will have to take place in our hearts and minds

For us to learn the signs?
What would it harm

To make our hearts and souls not hard?

 

When will we know

The pain she knew so?
When will we see

The day all he's and she's are free?