I don't suppose you know what it's like, to be second best. Or not even second, but third or fourth – somewhere so far down the line no-one can be bothered to count. I don't suppose you know what it's like to be overlooked. Remember those children's stories about invisibility cloaks? You longed for one, I'm sure. You laughed about how much fun it would be. You never thought how lonely it would feel. You never wondered what would happen if you couldn't take it off. I don't suppose you know how it feels to start each day thinking I can't, to know before you try that nothing will work out.

Just because we're small,
overlooked, down at heel,
doesn't mean we can't stand
with the rest of them
be seen with the best of them,
doesn't mean we can't dream,
doesn't mean we can't try,
doesn't mean we can't make
something so beautiful
you can hardly bear to look.
 

I am looking for scaffolding; the kind that can keep a person safe. It doesn’t matter what it’s made out of – love, laughter, language – I just need to know it can hold me. I am going somewhere I’ve never been before, and I'm worried I won’t be able to keep myself together without it. It’s only temporary; the scaffolding's just something I need to get started, until I know that the thing I’m building is strong enough to stand alone.
 

'Volunteering not only makes you feel great, and does great things, but it is also super super fun. Even stuff like handing out leaflets, and you see people getting involved doing stuff, crazy stuff, doing parades. I have really enjoyed it. I have enjoyed meeting lots of different people with like-minded interests.'

Spoken by Martha in the Left Coast Envoy video; https://youtu.be/WojH0beKXoI

Before this, it was a clothes shop – too quickly abandoned – a blank white space on a corner everyone could see.

For a moment, it is new again, despite the polystyrene ceiling tiles and foot-worn floorboards; the name still there in the scraped-off vinyl half-way up the stairs.

Where the party-wear hung in glittering rows, sits a table, stacked with new canvases – a clock; an arm; a half caught memory.

Where the jumpers lay in their refolded piles, there’s a box of ferns, waiting to start a conversation about time.