Lady of the Night - Ii

Dreaming of a pot of gold, you came to town It was sprawling, this metropolis, you knew none around Your earnings were scant and engagements, irregular The overseer assured steady income in lieu of a favour You succumbed to ward off uncertainties, and gradually sank deeper You were born of impoverished stock, high up in the Himalayas Your clean looks and youthful age were your kin’s panacea Your home, the arid plains, where land is mostly barren Starvation a reality, your innocent world was broken When it comes to sacrifice, inevitably you are chosen You were a country girl, pubescent and barely thirteen Travelling to the big city with a distant kin To serve an urban family with mop and pail A drug laced cup of tea made you vulnerable to a cartel You woke, imprisoned, in a dingy room of a highway brothel Battered and beaten and raped to submission You forgot the gods and your daily oblation Your escort paid dearly for his betrayal and malice Was it your homage to the gods or backstreet justice? You languish now in jail, but the brothel still exists You were in your second year, studying BA (Honours) With a weakness for the life of the upper class And the knowledge to achieve what you felt, you must The initiation was debasing – no niceties, just frenzied lust The payment was in cash –the first time wasn’t the last You are not alone in your tainted existence Women arriving at the metropolis in suburban trains Working by day and exiting before the peak hour rush Living in opulence, in times past – barely middle class Very discreet, these devil women and financially flush You conceived, a professional risk, and the baby you resolved to keep Now nineteen and actively trafficking, his misdeeds make you weep His latest catch, a tender ten year old, the same age you were shackled Your flesh and blood, the son, you had mothered from the cradle! Your agony was incomplete, now it had completed its cruel cycle Hail lady of the night With time, you’ve overcome both fear and fright And blended the distinction between wrong and right You’ve lost your vision, though you retain your sight In a world shrouded in darkness where the sun still shines bright