i put my playlist on shuffle. and i started thinking. images in my head. an empty dance studio, flooded with sunlight. an art studio, paint encrusted on every possible surface. a freshly marked out football pitch. all escapes. maybe none that i would ever understand. an empty stage. a guitar, begging to be tuned. a fresh set of pencils. maybe things id never get excited over. crochet needles and new wool. i may never be the person to pick these things up and use them. but i will be the person in the corner, talking and laughing, pocketing memories and writing them out like deconstructed polaroids. if you asked me ten years ago what i wanted to be, id say a singer. id like to be a poet. the greats. resigned to textbooks, jokingly quoted over a £5 macdonalds by tired gcse students, who could tell you the meaning behind every comma, swathed in highlighter and smudged biro. maybe id be known. maybe id be hated. even if i too, am resigned to the textbooks, id have made it. if i can speak to one person in that class, through pages of thin paper, swathed in highlighter, i would’ve made it.