Impoverished child—
for nickels, dimes—
bought by beauty.
Taught grace,
not from love—
but life confined.

Glamour-touched teen—
trained to speak—
to walk
for lust-filled eyes.
Stripped of name,
wrapped in robes,
to the highest bidding price—
child purity sold.

Woman fully realized—
through fog of an aged mind—
drifts upstream
from cherry-coloured Kyoto
to childhood slum
on a seaside,
the missing sister,
the parents long passed.
All gone—
without goodbye.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael Roque discovered his love for poetry and prose amid friends on the bleachers of Pasadena City College. Now he currently lives in the Middle East and is being inspired by the world around him. His poems have been published by literary magazines like Cholla Needles, The New Yorker, The Literary Hatchet and others. 

You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.