Tell my sisters at home

To cherish their home

My skin was no more at ease

My heart was in a land foreign

I had replaced tricycles for trains

And bridges for tunnels

My eyes was sickened by this same old

My nostrils begged for fresh air

I would no longer mentally mediate Ade’s quarrels with his new wife

I would be far gone, starting up my new life

I couldn’t help those screaming strangers turning to barbecue

But I could help a dreaming daughter get off the queue.

My plan was simple.

I would tell no one of my plans.

 

Call the number, I did

Understand this, I didn’t.

I resisted

I wasn’t interested, I insisted

I was promised a first class flight

Not a truck this tight

From as young as can have a period,

Fifty more girls we were

The wheels spun and spun

And spun and spun.

As confetti to an aisle

Were corpses to the desert

 

I broke up with Hope

And settled for Fear

He was a better lover

I could feel him here

He touched my heart and

Held me by my waist

But I wasn’t special

He touched the other girls too.

The tyres spun and spun

Till I wished to die

And begged to live

 

This act of mine

I won’t forgive

We spun and spun,

Till the spinning seized

We had left the comfort of the land

To the cold of the seas

Some were snack to the life underwater

Others buddies with a disease.

Alas!

We arrived

We heard tongues unfamiliar

It was a place called Libya

 

I woke up to a dream

This couldn’t be true

It was a strange market

I was on sale too

Did I embark on a journey

To serve men most horny?

To be injected daily

Between my thighs

With syringes long today,

Short the next

Slim today,

Thick the next?

 

Some praised the ‘doctors’

They had booked the appointment

But I was hale and hearty

I desired no treatment

How did I get here?

How could this be?

Damn! She was good!

She ministered to my soul

She flowed with the rhythm of a lead singer

And I took it in hook line and sinker

Here I lay, helpless

Some strong, sick and breathless

 

It is a jungle out here

Survive if you dare

There is no comfort here

There is no one by that name

Don’t seek freedom too

He never came this way

How dare you speak of hope?

She was murdered long ago!

Pain is all we know

He said he’ll never let us go

Let my tears drop into the earth

And plant the seed of a message

 

Let my screams go into the sky

Let my sisters hear why

Traffickers have no age,

Traffickers have no gender

Traffickers have a goal

They have an agenda

Beware of strangers making promises

Strangers can’t deliver

Tell my family of my regret

I only wanted better

Tell my nation to save us

At home and from this gutter

 

Do they not hear?

Why do they still come here?

Show them this

And hold them by the ear

Tell my sisters at home

To cherish their home

If silence is golden,

Freedom is a gold mine.

If I live to leave,

May I behold mine.

My skin is no more at ease

I crave a land familiar

 

Written by Aneta Chinsell – an OAP, Poet and Spoken Word Artist.