Colour

I have seen you here before and as always you are grey. I stand behind you in the queue and the emptiness that fills you seeps from your skin and singes my nostrils. My stomach lurches, so I breathe through slightly parted lips.

The bulge of your middle wobbles with each uninspired step and your arms lay heavy by your side. To swing them would bring attention. Colour. You have not always walked this way, but life has not been kind to you. Your hair is a reflection of yourself - grey, short, blunt. Unloved.

Stains display themselves like a portfolio of meals eaten over time and your trainers, with laces pulled tightly, have seen better days. While I was behind you I heard you humming a tune and it was nice. I don't know what it's called but I got the impression it takes you back to your better days. Colour.

I see a child equally as stained and unkempt, tugging on the sleeve of your sun bleached coat and you smile at him. Colour. He is relentless in his quest for a hit of sugar from the sweet machine and as usual you are too tired to fight, you give in. The story of your life. He gobbles up the little rainbow and enters the lions den with determination and gusto, navigates his way over obstacles and snarls his sweet stained teeth at his fellow Sleeve Tuggers.

I watch as you walk to a table, to rest your lead limbs. Next to you sits the mother of the Sleeve Tugger. She does the telling off and is the apple that didn't fall far from the tree. With the same grey look, she sees the world through colour blind eyes, framed by dark puffy circles that teeter on the edge of sunken cheeks. She sits with her stocky arms folded across her bulging tummy, like huge gates keeping love, faith, anger, sadness, all colours locked away. It's safer there.

Yet you all come here week after week and I can't help but wonder why? This place is noisy, full of energy and innocence. I see you looking at your Grandchild who tugs at your sleeve and he has climbed to the top. He calls for you, waving his arms, swaying and swinging them 'Look at me! Look at me!' And then I see it. I understand that he is your second chance. He is your chance to make up for your mistakes and for you to have better days. For you to have colour.