human trafficking piece for show

Mary of Bethany III

i was once some one’s daughter;
held tightly against protective bosoms,
feed spoiled and spilt milk dreams
that could never satisfy my voracious appetite.
i need to be full(filled).
i’ve seen what seems
like my motherless blood streams
burst at seams
let loose my woman child
expose her girl inside.
then she, I and we
clasp hands and hearts
as we watch our child (hood)
collapse, expand and unfold.
flow through vast green valleys
rolling bountiful through mountainous ranges;
only to be swallowed whole by the cold desolate desert sands.
disastrously unpredictable and painstakingly beautiful!
my life, stretched before and behind me
was once a series of yellow parking lines
tucked in a ghetto or concrete jungle.
cracked, disheveled and obsolete.
paralyzed to most eyes,
i am a delusion
speeding so fast.
I stood still!
never yielding,
junked illusions
plagued me
like broken rusted cars,
vagrants searching for their next fix,
and the heated steam that rushed from me just after
a summer rain!
yet I appear vacant.
my golden stripes,
shaded and faded fall
desperately deep into the
dense asphalt cradling the reality of my existence..
i am searching to blend and fill in.
i feast upon blandness and nothingness.
that emptiness sustains me,
like my life
it spans a billion miles each way
i turn..
i have aged and grayed
laying on my back;
traveled rail tracks;
tucked memories in knapsacks
stuck thumb in the wind;
vowing to never turn back..
each time
i sought myself
i’d find myself off track
brought back
bushwhacked,
attacked
beaten blue and black..
So I stay..
and weigh the weight
of lighted burdens wrapping me
holding me tightly
strangling me gently..
snatching me from tribal familiar
stolen before I ever knew my name..
they’ve tattooed highways,
and byways along my veins,
i am human cargo modernized slave..
i once called stop signs my father,
and street corners, mother.
i was born under
a black tarred highway
somewhere between hellfire and damnation.
linking death to liberation,
anticipation to desperation
expectation to trepidation.
the pungent confused condition
of enslavement
is the only constant I know..
aside from the lamp post lights
which rise, like the morning sun
so
i call stop signs padre,
street corners, madre,
they look over me,
protect me..
i cannot be human.
what else would birth a whore?
i was once someone daughter,
I just don’t know whose?


kdtaylor, 2009
section 8 coffee
all rights reserved