Beautiful Humans.
1
A Lawyer from Iraq.
Years of fighting for women’s rights.
Thirty years old or more. Separated from her ten-year-old daughter when she fled Iraq due to threats to her life as a result of her activism.
Beaten by her husband.
Major scars and burns.
Lived for four days on a railway station platform before she came to stay.
Divorcing and being threatened in the local streets.
In fear of attack at any time.
2
Seventeen, seven months living in the Y,
following eight years in a Children’s Home –
‘in Care’ it is called.
Ten GCSEs.
Strong with words and opinions.
Lives on ten pounds a week, cosmetics, toiletries, transport, non-Hostel food.
Bitter against all the systems and structures – including the here.
Cannot get a job, she says, because living at the Y is a stigma.
3
From a family who eat out of rubbish bins – he says.
To an adopted family who are rich rich – he says.
Drugged up for so many years – but now clean – he says.
Artiste, lyricist, songwriter, unemployed and still a young twenty one year old.
Yearning.
4
Blond.
Natural.
Sixteen.
Gentle.
Small.
From ‘care’
Regular visits to Soho bring in the cash for living.
And crack.
5
Young twenty-eight.
Articulate and educated.
Fear of touching his own emotions.
Opinions are much easier.
Unemployed and lacks confidence to burst the bubble.
One stumbling block.
Fear of failure – again.
6
Blond.
Natural.
Alcoholic.
Drinks to run away.
Hides away – by drinking and because of drinking.
Health poor.
Nearly sixty years old.
7
Late teens.
Handsome.
Eyes full of chemicals.
“You remind me of my Mother” he said when we first met.
He hates his Mother.
Years of using and selling crack.
Court cases pending.
Getting respect was the challenge.
Not counter punching with the ‘put downs’ was the way.
Seeing through the smoke screen of nasty person-ness which is ‘I am not able to be loved so don’t try.
Obnoxious.
Not easy to love.
Life of rejection.
Once, only once, has he asked my opinion.
No opinions offered otherwise, he is on the run from many imposed in his past.
Beautiful Humans
