Life After Lunar House

(NASS means National Asylum Support Service)

When we arrived,

Mum and I were taken to Croydon –

Lunar House.

I carried a pink Minnie Mouse

Backpack with two crayons inside

And a shrivelling orange.

I hoped they had paper

In this cheerless skyscraper,

(Or so it seemed to little me,

Who had just turned the age of three).

That night,

The moon moved into the Earth's shadow,

And we as cargo –

Awaited judgement.

A Tottenham Hotspur F.C. mug,

Steamed from the interviewing table,

Whilst mum allegedly recounted an abstract fable.

Her story too graphic for this father to discern,

So, he immediately thought of ‘voluntary’ return.

She said no:

“I cannot go back to Moscow”.

Later, a taxi arrived from Migrant Help -

And drove us to a hostel in Upton Park.

That Belarussian loan shark

Came to my mind,

As we drove in darkness now assigned

The status of ‘asylum seeker’.

I felt weaker

As mum’s face grew bleaker.

Formerly,

That man had taken us from Buda on the E30

To Zastenki.

The journey was beastly.

I was not yet three,

But I remember that time disturbingly clearly.

I think I have C-PTSD.

That was just the beginning.

Three weeks we spent in this cockroach infested space;

My little brother’s birthplace.

Mum called him Mikhail

After Bulgakov.

The Master and Margarita.

He was conceived by a demon –

So mum sought Eudaemon.

He was my baby doll,

My mum’s Aperol.

Vibrant and brilliantly hued,

He imbued

Beauty back into our lives.

Our trauma was held -

Temporarily in Home Office archives.

***

In May we were disbursed

To our NASS house.

The beds are ridden with louse.

Migrant Help said we each would have a bed.

But mum was misled.

Now, I sleep on the floor

After being burnt by the radiator -

That bone-warming traitor!

I was rushed to hospital

And little-by-little

I became numb to the pains

Of living like a child in purgatory,

Whilst mum was obliged to retell her story

Time and time again

To indifferent Home Office men.

Mikhail sleeps in the bed with mum.

She worries he will suffocate,

Whilst we wait -

For asylum in the UK.

COVID has created a justified delay.

***

Mum looks old;

More impassive than before she was sold

For sex,

With no Carex.

Mum has a degree from

Lomonosov Moscow State University.

But this does not carry across the sea,

When one chooses to flee

Depraved debauchery.

Stripped of the right to work,

To rent,

And to drive,

The Home Office makes it impossible to thrive.

Mum is liable to be detained,

Despite being in the NRM for being chained –

To a bed by monetary-manic men.

Victims of trafficking should not be imprisoned

According to the Modern Slavery Act.

Yet it is customary for decision-makers to refract

From these rules.

The lady below says we are ‘bargaining tools’

In a bid for ‘Brexit’.

We are ‘scrounges of the welfare state’;

Nigel Farage’s weight.

We should be grateful he says,

But what for?

We are soo desperately poor.

Mum was forced to be a whore.

I sleep on the floor.

There is half a box of Shreddies in our kitchen drawer.

The old granny upstairs has a bed sore.

She moans about missiles in the cold war.

We floated ashore.

Our dingy began to capsize.

Now all I dream about are cries –

Echoing into mournful skies.

I am only three,

And all I want is a safe space just to be.

I also want mum to feel free...

Finally!