I never have time to write anymore. And when I do I only write about how I never have time. It's work and it's money and I've written more lists than songs lately. I stay up all night to do all these things I need to do, be all these things I want to be, playing with shadows in the darkness that shouldn't be able to exist. Empty bottles and cigarettes while watching the sunrise, why do I complain? I have it all, everything I ever asked for.

I think I’ll be happier writing with no money than not writing with a lot of money.

I have a romanticised idea about dedicating myself to my work, to live and die for it and let nothing else interrupt. To live and learn all there is to live and learn in order to be a great writer, a great artist: all I came here to be.

I am the contrast. I am forever the crack in the window that lets the winter in. I am forever the moment between laughter and tears, happiness and sadness. I am light and darkness. I am fire and ice. You will try to take me into your life, but I won't fit, and you will not know how to tell me that there is simply no place for me.There is simply no place for a girl like me.

I turned myself into an artist because then my life would be about creating meaning out of ugliness and that would be my life, and it was noble. It was the beginning of a journey, the creating of the world every single day and I was not bored. I was ecstasy and creation and nothingness turned into melodies and I was dancing with the spirits.

You have to believe that your voice can mean something. You have to believe that what you do matters. And you have to keep going even on days you can't find that belief. If you can't do it for yourself, you do it for all the other young souls who need to be shown that things are possible. That they too can do that thing they dream of. You do it despite the doubts and the struggles. You do it because it's what you came here to do.That's what makes an artist.

5.57am and I’m finishing the last poem to the taste of the last cigarette. Smoke in my lungs, poetry on the paper. Inhale, exhale, it doesn’t get much easier.

When the others were picked up and walked home by friends or fathers or best friend’s sisters,I was the kid in a grey hoodie, walking with the poets, the singers, the thinkers, and I was not alone.

There is a switch in the air tonight. It’s not suffocating, like breakups all those years ago, but clean and clear. He does not want me anymore so I tilt my head, take a breath and say, “Okay. I understand.”It’s calm now. My heart didn’t break, it kept on beating like a stoic marching forward without looking back, and I will be a writer now.I love so many people, still.I think I will write about them forever.