She shrank from the man, who wanted to enslave her body,
and over months with her children she walked, crawled
and found a
place to sleep. work for few coins, hiding and
hoping that they would not chase her and place her
again in chains.
—
A man took pity, her money and her mother’s jewellery
and placed her in a group to travel across the wide
wilderness. She ate scraps and sold her body so that
she could keep travelling away from terror and try to
find a way through to feed her cheerless children.
—
It took more than a year before she was pushed onto
a frail boat that was thrust into the seething waters of
a strange sea and holding her children, enduring the
cold and violence of the waves they arrived on a
strange and sandy shore. Lights sparkled dimly in
a far off way and together they walked through the
strong salty grasses.
——
Someone came and took her
and thrust her into a van and gruff voices warned
her in a language of violence and further threats.
——-
Mute and the children grizzling they held tightly to
one another, and once the van stopped, they were
talked through a security gate into a building full
of destitute, desperate people from lands far away.
———
She shrank back with her children and knew that
hell was here. They told her through an interpreter
that she would be returned, and discovered to
her shock that she was hated by this government,
and that Great Britain was cruel, compassionless
and as threatening as those,
through which she had hard travelled.