Showing posts with label Little Girl Lost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Little Girl Lost. Show all posts

Friday, August 30, 2013

Trafficked



photo © 2013 Jennifer Wagner





she never knew a man
before this
hasn’t known a real one since


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner



“Between 700,000 and 4 million women and children will be trafficked this year, with the majority being forced to work in the sex trade. In America, there are an estimated 40,000 men, women and children enslaved at this very moment. If everyone who cares takes action, we can end slavery once and for all.” Don’t Sell Bodies.



“Typically known for coffeehouses and cloud cover, Seattle has also gained another title: 3rd most prostituted children in the nation. Experts estimate that there are up to 300,000 underage girls sexually trafficked nationally every year. These girls (many as young as 12 and 13 years old) are bought and sold for the pleasure of men all over the country.” Rape For Profit Film website.



Click the links above to learn more, raise awareness, help end this thing.


haiku my heart
Poets United: The Poetry Pantry

Monday, May 13, 2013

Notes from the Bloodwater



What you don’t know is
the wolves came when I was much too young
and sunk their teeth into the deep of me and left a hole.

The surgeries to repair the damage
have not yet gone far enough,
and so I carry this wreckage around inside
where I’ve hidden them
and stretched Kevlar over the scars.

Sometimes I strip it off
and break things in half
to produce a rough edge
and cut the stitching open again
to watch the blood flow
down the shower drain.

Sometimes I make suggestive
remarks to a near stranger
and show a little too much cleavage
while gazing intently at their mouth.

Male or female, it doesn’t matter,
it’s a heart I’m looking for,
since mine is near drained.

I have this counselor
who loves me, I think.
Or else she is just really good
at letting her eyes well up with tears
when I tell my stories.

She says to not stop wanting connection,
to not stop looking to God
for love,
to safe people, for love too.

But God, I fear, allows things
I am still struggling to understand.

And safe people, well,
most days I think it is safer
to love the oil slick street after rain.

Jesus, she once said to me,
understands being bloodless
and mangled and left with holes.
And he wasn’t even repulsed by a girl like me.

I haven’t told anyone yet
but I’m beginning to think maybe I could like a guy like that.


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

Friday, March 22, 2013

Sugar


Street Posts, Seattle, WA.  Image © 2013 Jennifer Wagner


 
 
when your spindles turned
to char-
coal,
you wiped your eye-
lashes
and turned your hair crimson, cocoa,
blonde, black

melting in the freeze;
you, a candy in the dish,
purple and licked,
true confections on the tip
of your tongue

giving kisses
cold-
er than
they’ve draw you
in the lines
of your cheekbones
and jaw-
dropping curves

the ones
 no one keeps
past
yesterday

but still
you try to be, to do
everything they want

turning bucks
and, when honest, at your heart,
feel something
you’ve heard
is akin to love



Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Wagner