Human Trafficking Haiku

Lonely and depressed,
inadequate and worthless.
Please, even one friend?

Online chatting fills
this void in my heart.  He says
that he “treasures” me.

We plan to meet soon.
Friday at a street corner.
We’ll ride in his car.

So, we meet at eight.
But his face does not show the
worth he made me feel.

I’m locked in the car.
Not one man, but two up front.
Confusion and fear.

Later, a basement.
Both my body and my soul
in chains.  I am drugged.

If I tell, they kill
my family.  No escape.
Stuck in a nightmare.

Selling my body,
twelve times a day.  What happened?
Acceptance and love?

I feel as if I
merely watch myself living
this hell in a dream.

Reality.  My
reality.  Forever.
Hope does not exist.

But wait, too good to
be true.  He is arrested:
the man who constrains!

I have never been
so glad to be taken.  I
go to a shelter.

Seven years of dark.
I am now given freedom
to speak, act, and live.

Freedom, choices, life.
Never valued these more than
now.  Goodbye to force!

For rescue, refuge,
safety, my forever thanks
to End Slavery.

-Anonymous