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.

I'd like to win. There are people winning everywhere. They win the state championship. They win a blue ribbon in the art show. I don't win things. I'm not good at things. There are so many dreams. So many things I wish I was good at, yet don't know where to start. I'd like to win. Like to stand up on stage, at the finish line, or watching my own work amaze other people. To know that I've found my place. Found the one thing that makes me special, that sets me apart from the rest. I'd like to win. To know that there isn't a single other person on earth who can do the things that I can do. To know that I am great. That I'll be remembered long after I'm gone. That people can look at me and ask how I did it. I'd like to win. I'd like to be the reason other people find themselves wanting to win. If I can do something amazing, and spark other people thinking like this. If other people can one day read this and think of me. Think that the things I did are noteworthy. Remembered. That I figured out how to be good at something, how to win. I'd like to win. But I'm not sure how.