Sex enslavement

20 years old
A Yazidi women
Ethnically Kurdish
Her community she
Very religious
To be a minority
In Northern Iraq
Where no one is free

Living with fear
With dread and with awe
Tears one’s soul from one’s body
Deep into one’s core
Every waking hour worrying
Wondering when
total uneasiness
About the men

The intimidation
It threatens to make
Alarming impressions
For anyone’s sake
Distrustful and doubtful
About life itself
Anxious and shaking
Stuck on a shelf

And then it happens
ISIL arrive
Aggression and evil
Can I suvive?
Its very distressing
What can I do
All this noise
All this shouting
A sinister few

It preys on your mind
There isnt an hour
When your heart is not beating
And inside you cower
You hope you find coursge
The warrior may
Take on the battle
And despairingly say

I was captured in Sinjar
And taken away
To Syria and sold
Someone did pay
Money for me
I had become
a sex slave at 20
My body was numb

bereft of hope
What might happen to me
Things just seemed ominous
Where would i be
I mustn’t lose heart
Then this white guy
Said I
Now belonged to him
I wanted to cry

This hideous man
White skinned
A black beard
He a jihardi
Those men I feared
He wanted my body
Although he said I
Was not a muslim
But was worth a try

He took me by force
It was painful as hell
He defaced my spirit
And he did smell
He was unclean
But I had to be
Raped by him hurt by him
And constantly

All of the time
His mantra was I
Was dirty was filthy
Which then was why
He showered after
Doing me
Then said his prayers
But he was proudly
Exposing his wares

You should be muslim
He screamed at me, YOU
Should make out you love me
Whatever I do
I felt really sick
For yazidi’s like me
Are virgins we solemnly
Did want to be

But all that was over
Ravished was I
By a filthy Anerican
A muslim guy
Preaching the koran
At the top of his voice
And leaving me bleeding
And having no choice

Inside me i wept
I deplored what he’d done
I was terribly sore
I just wanted to run
Anywhere run like the wind anywhere
I held back my tears
Swallowed up with despair

This world is a sickness
The suffering do
Feel so much torment
It really cuts through
Internal damnation
Sadness and grief
Complete desolation
And lack of belief

I was a flower
In my dear mothers eyes
And now i’d been raped
At gunpoint my thighs
Were swollen and bruised
I felt dirty as hell
And although he was gone
I could still smell his smell

His stench filled my nostrils
Prostrate was I
My clothes were all torn
I was, far from dry
My wretchedness took me to realms
To nightmares
And all I was left with
Were yazidi prayers

“Hardwired” had helped me
Get to the US
To talk to the people
In the congress
My harrowing story
Had to be heard
All the pain and the bitterness
Of every word.