Time for change

My life has taken me to many a strange place.
There have been times I didn't think I would ever see the day that I would be walking around Manchester, holding hands, walking in the rain, counting down to a warm shower and an owl onesie with a cup of tea and a pussycat called Gordon.

Amongst the lesbian cliche, I found myself oddly grateful, I wandered into the shop to buy a tin of cat food and there was a man sat outside, in the pouring rain, with a rather well used looking polystyrene cup, asking the masses of people stepping around him for change.

I had just enough change for the bus home in my pocket but I couldn't get the image of this man out of my mind while I was waiting for the bus, so I marched to the nearest cash machine, took some money out and went and bought some sandwiches. This may sound like a private school girls ease of conscience but believe me it was much more than that.

This man's face has played on my mind since I saw him, since he said thank you, since I got on the bus to my little house, where the heating was on full blast.

I ran away from home. I wasn't a teenager. I was old enough to have a handle on my life but I didn't. My parents broke my heart and I ran, I got a train to London with the money that I had left of my allowance and took the battery out of my phone. I disappeared.
The money ran out. I was homeless. In the city where I was born. In the city where I was once great. In the city that could have made me, but I lost it.
I went to an internet cafe and searched for options, and sadly fell upon one that most girls do in the same situation.
I was picked up, driven to warehouse in Brent Cross. It wasn't warm. There were lots of girls there, mostly Polish, they seemed happy with the way things were. I shared a bed with a girl called Emily, we didn't sleep. Mice crawled across the bedsheets and kept us awake. The shower was cold, but it was water. A man brought us Mcdonalds if we were good. I had forgotten what it was like.
Friends begged my parents to take notice of the fact I had fallen off the face of the earth, they knew something had happened, they knew I'd left with my heart in my hands. I just didn't care.
I didn't want that life anymore, they didn't want me, so I ran, as far from that world as possible.
After 3 months I turned my mobile phone back on, I had a voicemail from my grandma, she didn't say much, she just said "Come home"
I called my mother, she was annoyed I'd bothered her. She asked me what I had been doing, where I was, how I was surviving without their money, I said one word "prostitution"
She put the phone down.
I lived a life in a blur, I thought I was taking control and regaining the power I had lost, it's only now when I have time and strength to reflect I realise I was wrong. All it left me with was shame and an addiction.
I sometimes take the bus to London, it goes past that warehouse. I squeeze her hand extra hard when we go around that god forsaken ring road.
She has the ability to make me forget, the things that broke me, she makes me forget that place, that time. She makes me feel clean, loved, worth and I love her for it.

My point is, I used to walk by people in the rain, until people walked by me.
I don't want anyone to feel like I did, and I know I can't change the world, but I can make it better.

So I need your help, I need time, I need hands, I need love, I need hope.
We'll make soup, we'll make sandwiches, we'll make tea and toast.
We'll have blankets, and jumpers and whatever it takes.
Because there is no such thing as invisible anymore.