Total fear grips me in the darkness
Remember, I must be quiet
Alone in this cell, is it days or weeks?
Fear grips me, makes me tremble
Freedom, lost forever; no one will find me
I don’t know if anyone’s even searching
Collar and chain tether me, offering no leeway
Kept drugged, imprisoned, enslaved, for later use
Eventually, to be sold at auction
Delivered to some pedophile abroad
Can anyone find me?
How will they, if no one knows?
I don’t think I’m going to make it
Life was not supposed to be this
Drugs will kill me if the men don’t
Relief from this fear comes with the needle
Even so, it’s temporary; they need me conscious
Not willing and feisty, they like, but lethargic, no
Sickening, how they hurt me and use me
These men just keep coming
Every day, night, and week, I am sold
At some point they will lose interest
Regrettably, they’ll end my suffering
Slip me too much in the shot
Silently, I’ll drift off and never wake up
Can anyone save me?
Release me from this life
Every day I’m less like me
Anger consumes me, and I remain
Maybe today I’ll get to go home
(Published on Vocal, March 2026)
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Alexandra, this is incredibly difficult to read—and I mean that as a compliment to what you accomplished. ❤️
The acrostic structure is what hit me first. As the opening letters slowly reveal “TRAFFICKED CHILDRENS TEARS SCREAM,” the form itself starts carrying part of the message. The reader isn’t allowed to stay comfortably outside the poem; every line pushes us farther into the fear, isolation, and loss of control.
What I think works especially well is the repetition of the questions:
“Can anyone find me?”
“Can anyone save me?”
Those are simple sentences, but in this context they become devastating because they remind us that underneath every statistic or headline is an individual person wondering whether anyone even knows they’re missing.
And the final line—“Maybe today I’ll get to go home”—hurt in a different way because there’s still that tiny thread of hope after everything that came before it.
This isn’t an easy subject to write about, and it shouldn’t be an easy piece to read. You gave the imagined child a voice without trying to make the darkness comfortable for the reader.
Powerful work, Alexandra. ❤️