people look down on the homeless. they smell. they are drunk. they are addicts.

but we are all only a calamity away from destitution. so i try and give gratitude every day that although i don’t live in a society or a world in which every person has the dignity and security or a safe place to sleep and sufficient food and comfort, at least, currently, i do have that luck.

remember that the reason for homelessness is societal. we could change our politics to eradicate poverty. as a society, we choose not to.

so when i wrote this line, i was just trying to empathise with a homeless man who i had encountered near my flat. he was drunk. and i reasoned, if i had to sleep on the pavement tonight, i would probably want to get a bit drunk.

as is common with autistic people, i have struggled to get to sleep all my life. even in my comfortable bed in my warm flat, i really on medication to help me sleep. i’d really need to up the dose to have any chance of sleeping on the pavement.