'Just Another Trafficked Girl"

Jumpers woven in wickedness,

Stand outside The Wild Monkey bar,

Under historic surveillance from the Russian Tsar.

Knitted together in tangible transience

At Aldwych bus stop,

He’s paid for her through an exploitative cash crop.

Wallowing at the Waldorf in garish audacity,

He negotiates her soul over Earl Grey Tea-

Signing her away so that she shall never be free.

Moss green shrouds The Delaunay counter,

With waiters whom serve him at his afternoon encounter,

As he bids on 2:00am’s infamous mounter;

The financially prosperous trafficked soul.

Once a shadow and now a ghoul.

Sipping Sipsmith’s gin,

Whilst the 26 bus warps itself around the

Raucous walls of the Royal Courts of Justice,

He grimaces and whispers to her: “trust us”.

On the edge of St Pauls,

The Barbican sleeps

In suspicious quietude at 19:30 on a Saturday

In this capital city –

Steeped in secret salacity.

3 – 4 Poppins Court lays obstructed

By scaffolding -

Obscuring the scent of burnt coffee

With toffee viscosity.

Sweet cement;

A mafia’s ground rent.

Delinquent dreamers derive from the Punch Tavern,

Adorned in gothic gold leaf,

Drugged in delirious belief

That a better life awaits

In the United Kingdom –

A space that promises unrequited freedom.

As the 17 goes to Archway,

Her mind flees to Old Bailey Street

To greet,

Nightmares of being dropped into a vending machine –

Exposed to men, but never seen.

Numbers are pushed and a Barbie drops out –

Adding to the mafia’s malicious clout.

A wedding ceremony of Mercedes arrives

On Ave Maria Lane -

Painting the portraits of the men most vein,

Who create copies of victims forged to be deemed ‘insane’.

Whilst nigari rolls are devoured by the diabolical

At The Ivy Asia,

Her desperate face becomes warped in asphyxia.

Reflected in opulence,

She realises her body is worth less than a pence.

A crime of passivity

Committed by the passer-by,

Remains hidden in that fateful lie,

Of a better life –

The ongoing strife

That traffickers relish on

From

The depths of immorality –

For which we might never see

And hope that the victim is 

                                                                        not “me”.