Human Cargo #237: Aneshka

It is dark, but for the light from an electric torch taped above my head.
I sway in the darkness of the sea swell on invisible waves.
Somewhere there is water.
Somewhere there is ocean and current and the cool salt air and the blue
Of sky and sea.
Somewhere there is a girl, now almost a woman, who laughed at my lame jokes and smiled at my stories and listened to my complaints and held me
Like a sister should.
I sway in the darkness of the sea swell on invisible waves.
My metal chrysalis holds me in near-black waiting.
I would spread my wings and fly from here, if only I could break free.
They would cherish her more.
They would wrap her in silk.
They would hold her long after her wings have uncurled from a budding body.
They would tear at her rice-paper-thin wings
So she cannot fly.
So she cannot flutter her beauty from their cold appraising eyes.
So she would forever be an object to be turned over and tossed aside.
I rock on this dark current
In this dark shell
On an unloving sea
In this place of shadow.
She is somewhere beyond these steel walls.
She is somewhere cursed.
She is cast about like the cut bones of dice,
To fall where she will
To a cruel man’s delight.
They can toss me as they will.
I will smile and say thank you.
Anything, for her to be free from this perpetual death machine
That tears and shreds her child life and child dreams and child love.
Anything, for her to be free from this hell of the flesh
That sucks her soul’s essence from her lips.
They can toss me as they will.
I will smile and say thank you
Anything, but to know she is out there,
Touched like a virgin bride at the hands of a brutal drunkard.
Anything, but to know she is crying silently inside her heart
Because she fears to let tears smear a whore-doll painted face.
I sway in the darkness of the sea swell on invisible waves.