An Indonesian Voice (3) – The Street Prostitute

By Rod Pallister

Empty devastation in streets of rich harvest,

She stands in desolation, her small body…

Dwarfed by towers of concrete stretching up,

Into the blood red sunset of a Jakarta skyline.

Standing listlessly playing the waiting game,

Her sad eyes locking with the hungry eyes…

Of the street predator, waiting for defeated prey,

Hunger mixed in a cocktail of lust and expectation.

She moves slowly, scarred feet aching in worn shoes,

She cares not for him, just a pittance of payment,

To provide sustenance discarded by the elite,

Infant mouths searching for a mother in travail.

Reaching him she smells the odor of loathing,

Hot oil of fear dripping over her dark eyes,

Her hesitancy losing the battle to desperation,

Turning she follows him…she knows not where.

Soon she emerges from a trade of depravity,

Eyes ceaselessly circling the watching eyes,

Clutching desperate money she flees the street,

To satisfy the crying hunger, product of her womb.

Sinking deep into a sofa of fading green,

She gives food unwanted by the plague of obesity,

And wraps her suckling youngest onto breasts…

Source of life flowing into a parched empty mouth.

Her eyes close in weariness, but she cares not,

Thoughts travelling back to her conflict of youth,

Remembering once more the long road…

Stretching back…a map into her memory.

Images of luxury, blended with happy laughter,

A carefree childhood secured by wealth,

Loving parents…warm kisses every night,

She knew only an oasis of plenty.

Her mind again seeing the shattering blast,

Mists of blood and human body parts…

Blown into nothingness in a fleeting instant,

Bali…an island sacrificed to the idol of death.

Slowly the clouds of dusts and debris subside,

 Her virgin eyes aware of stripped nakedness,

Her mother torn apart into oblivion,

Father reluctantly entering the gates of heaven,

Orphaned into the cruelty of separation,

Her youth cushioning the reality of the moment,

A victim of the mindless deed of depravity…

Planned by the perpetrators of terror.

Retreating closer in time…she remembers,

Lonely tears unheeded by substitute love,

Fostered by reluctant faces, remote and uncaring,

Appointed by authorities stampeding in panic.

Rejected and severed from parental love,

She chose to exchange her existence of loss,

For a future dressed in an eternity of uncertainty,

The grey unwashed streets her home of choice.

Seeking shelter and food, but nothing to trade…

Except a young beauty inherited by ancestry,

Her supple body attracting unwanted attention,

By the homeless hardened into a spiral of survival.

Hunger adopted her mind, fatigue her companion,

She released the virginity of her fleeing youth,

Offering relief from the endless famine of emptiness,

She entered a world despised by the ignorant.

Without warning, the status of motherhood,

Thrust into a body unprepared for travail,

Swollen body a testimony to a lifestyle of pity,

Unknown father…just a world that did not care.

Slowly the mists of time recede into the past,

Slowly opening eyes sunken in sadness,

She caresses her suckling infant…satisfied,

Sleeping, ignorant of his destiny with the lost.

Reluctantly her lost thoughts seek answers…

Questioning a path unmapped in her mind,

Seeking justice, rejecting her unending sacrifice,

A citizen of hell, craving a ticket to somewhere…

rod_pallister@yahoo.co.uk.