Renee is fourteen,
Her family, like pieces of broken glass,
Running from pain that she can't outlast,
An innocent victim of her past.

She hitches a ride,
Interstate 40 towards Hollywood,
Maybe there she will be understood,
At least she knows that the weather's good.

She arrives with dreams, but she's in beyond her means,
And inside her a child's voice screams for someone to care.

Renee needs a home,
She squats in a shack down on Gardner Street,
In the shadow of wealth and the town's elite,
Wondering each day what she'll have to eat.

She sells what she must,
She'd rather not, but there's no way out,
Survival becomes what her world's about,
And, on the street, money is all that counts.

No time for tears,
Anger hurts less than fear,
Hardened beyond her years and too tired to care.

Renee is alive, but each day one more part of her soul is dead,
Could we have afforded to turn our heads if she had been our little girl instead'