Slave of Men

In winter’s night light she sat up in fright, the bite on her skin piercing through.

In the dusk of the land she reached out her hand to find what remains of a shoe.

She knows not where or how she arrived there, nor the corpse that lay at her side.

Gently she moves searching for clues to answers that led to that night.

 

Blood streamed from her head, she thought she were dead or undoubtedly in a dream.

She felt lost and panicked, coupled by frantic. Surely it’s not as it seems.

An ache in her foot caused her to look at the stinging that caused her grief.

The heart of a lover, the truth of another pierced into the veins of a leaf.

 

Waves crash ‘round, no witnesses found to hear her cries and plea.

All evidence washed with the tide that had crossed the broken toes of her feet.

Her memory fades of that fateful day of when she’s framed for murder.

Screaming and wailing squirming and failing, no one for miles heard her.

 

Pulling at her chain that revealed her name written in tempered glass.

Memories came, nightmares remained — once again a dreary past.

The man beside her had been inside her for he was her faithful client.

Faithfully confessed that when she undressed, she was there to tame the giant.

 

A choke hold, an arm breaks, the shrills scold, the shells flake, she gives into her master

A laboring duty, borderline-cruelty, he controlled and not once asked her

If she missed her past, taken for granted at last by her father wrongfully deemed

Unfit as a dad, indeed it is sad, life was not as it  seemed.

 

What no man told, every man controlled, taking turns for a piece of her life.

Ruined and ravaged by an amorous savage, no longer fit for a wife.

She at last gave in, bringing him to an end, exhausted of a life as his whore.

Unsure of the norm she dragged her shriveled form into the vanishing shore.

 

The tides called her name, she’s not to blame, washing her clean of her sins.

The daily death she knew was finally through and she could begin again.

Under the waves, herself she forgave, listening to the voices of the sea.

The life of a slave is no way to behave, at last she was joyous and free.

 

Water fills her lungs, she drifts to the bottom, smiling and ready to leave

A world of lies, the demon cries, losing another life to the sea.

Tomorrows anew and without a clue another female is to be sold

To the highest bidder, a father, a hitter, has purchased a twelve year old.

 

 

 

 

 

—A. Joleigh

03.18.15