She Prostitutes Poem by Thabitha Marakalala

She Prostitutes

She said desperate times calls for desperate measures,
She embarked on a search for gold and hidden treasures.
Parentless her flesh is dressed with poverty,
How she rises each day to her life is a mystery.
I watch her drag herself through thorns.
Each day as we huddle through storms.

Stomach howling in emptiness,
Face painted with sadness.
She has no time for tears,
There is no room for fears.
She buries her remorseful emotion,
To feed us is her only strong devotion.
Days and nights she will roam the streets,
Rotate from street corners to sheets.
Her mind set on than one great need,
She has five hungry mouths to feed.

It's true fate picks it's favourites a sure bet,
I watch her pain rising with every Sunset.
Like a body without a pitiful soul,
She would stare at the mirror image so foul.
Like a night without the moon,
Her tears ran as she would swoon.
The night haunts her every step,
The moon lights her path as she crept.
She knew we needed her presence,
But she would have to risk a prison sentence.

From pub to pub... now worn out,
Despised and isolated she's still about.
From hotel to motel she has cruised,
Harrased, molested and bruised.
Her personality doesn't have fancy frames,
They look at her with disgust and call her names.

This young girl once had dreams,
Her innocence lost in poverty screams.
She does her walk to make ends meet,
Nothing about it is ever neat.
She is a young girl with broken dreams,
Like a river with dried streams.
A young girl living a nightmare,
A mother to her siblings, her pain she can't share.
Living this life so very destitute,
She is my sister the prostitute.

Tbt-M