That point in time when the world is new, fresh.
Do you know innocence?

Rough hands, clinking coins, sold for eighty dollars.
Do you know confusion?

Enter a place unknown
Shoved in a room that’s cold
Trembling, on a bed that’s low
Panic, misery, fear
Do you know fear?

Could you know fear when your life is a rhythm of texts and likes
While mine is a jumble of pain and weary eyes?

I am Bharti Tapas, age fourteen, a child prostitute in India
But to the men who come in the night, I am but one of a million condemned faces

Twenty men a day, freedom is a slowing fading echo.
Do you know despair?

Life.
Breathing, blinking, my heart beats
Thump
Thump
Thump
But does surviving mean living?

Death.
I feared it in the way a shadow shrinks from light
Now I realize it’s only an escape,
an escape from the nightmares that have become my life
You sit here listening to me ramble,
as someone lies trembling,
abused,
a mere child

Later tonight you may go home,
tossing these words into the back of your closet
with your dust covered photo-albums and moth-eaten blankets
Every minute your clock ticks by
a child is being taken from her home, forced to make money,
money from customers who hurt and disgrace her,
money for masters who beat and starve her,
money that could be used to save her life

I’ve heard of people, people like you bringing the impossibility of freedom
Do you know hope?