Whenever I'm asked what it felt like on my last day of school, I never know quite what to say, as it was neither good nor bad.
I remember sitting with the friend I'd walked to school with for the past two years, we sat on the swings and we smelt of vodka and our clothes were covered in mud and our faces covered in red pen. And there we were, adults. I dont remember what we talked about; maybe passed a comment on how we'd never have to run late to school again or how we'd never get in trouble for screaming with laughter in the library again. It all seemed forced. What was more poignant was the silence; we were both thinking the same thing: I'm probably never going to see you again. And maybe it didn't feel too sad because the sun was shining and the slide in the park glistened and the cold hadn't yet set in and the warmth of the summer evening danced upon our limbs. But it was real.
And I knew that maybe this was it. I was moving away to uni and I was going to meet new people and eventually forget about everyone and everything that had happened in the past six years, good or bad. I'd forget about the times my friends and I got kicked out of classes for laughing, or got sent to the headteacher for smoking behind the school garage. I'd forget the drunken exhiliration of that time when we crashed a house party for fun, and maybe even if I was lucky I'd forget the time when I broke down in tears in the middle of science class because my friend told me she didn't like me anymore.
And suddenly the nothingness and irrelevance of the past 6 years hit me. It suddenly didnt matter that a few girls didn't like me. It didnt matter that the boy I liked when I was 15 didn't like me back. It didn't matter that once I was that weird kid who nobody talked to. And it's not about the bad memories you have with the people you hate; it's about the times you spent with the ones you adored. The times you got in trouble together and the friday nights walking home together and that time maybe you were a little too drunk and they were a little bit too judgemental. You can't change the memories you have but you can use them and mould them into the person you are and the one you want to become. It doesn't matter where you've come from or what you've been through, right now you're alive and you have everything you could ever want in front of you. You just have to fucking grab it and never let go. Because you can't change where you come from but you can change where you go.
But what remained in my head throughout the whole 10 minutes we spent sitting on the swings, was that this wasn't the end. It was the beginning. This was the beginning of life for me. I hadn't experienced anything. I was untouched by the world. I still had so much to do; so many people to meet and kiss and laugh with and cry with and fight with. Even now I think of all the people I've met since that evening, and how much they mean to me. And the enormity of how accurate I was back then shakes me, and remains relevant. I have so many people to meet, they just don't know it yet. And me, I have so much I want to do with myself. Maybe in the past I've been hurt and torn down and hurt others back, and maybe I cared too much about things that didn't matter. Maybe I was too quick to look down on people I didn't understand, and wrong to feel upset when someone did the same to me. And maybe I'd been too angry and maybe I needed to fix a lot of things. But sitting there, everything felt do-able. Fixable. And I'll admit that from then and now, a lot of the positivity I felt that day has wiltered. But it's still there, somewhere. I'm just trying to find it, because, metaphorically speaking, I'm not leaving this world without my footprints on the moon.

The first few months of my gap year were good as I was making money and it was good not having to worry about the pressures of school and homework and deadlines. However, soon september came around and all my friends left for uni and ended up making new friends and it was difficult to keep in touch. I became very lonely and secluded, only seeing a couple of friends on the off occasion when they came home from uni for the weekend. I started to find myself experiencing the same kind of feelings I experienced in 2010, which worried me a lot. It was only when I made a twitter account and met five very special and important people that my life started to turn around. The names of these people are Jack, James, Katie, Charlie and Will. I don't quite know how we all became some sort of twitter friendship group, but it happened, and this friendship influenced my life in so many ways that I often find it unthinkable that I don't actually know these people in real life. They inspired me a lot and made me laugh and gave me some sort of validation that I wasn't a loser or a loner, and they made me feel confident in the person that I am and suddenly life didnt seem so lonely or scary. I had tweeted various times about my longing to make videos, yet I had always been too scared and too self conscious to actually follow through, but upon the continual encouragement of these five heroes, in february last year I uploaded a very long and unedited 6 minute vlog to a website called Telly.

stop hurting
stop breathing for a second
see how long you can hold it in
never again will you inhale
the smell of a burnt out firework
or a menthol cigarette snaking your lungs
the smell of a morning city
or the joy of being young

doesn't that make you sad?
doesn't that hurt more?

You & I

I love
the way that your hands runs to your mouth when you laugh
and the coarse touch of your hands I long to kiss
You
are just a little too nice for me
but I'm willing to abhor all sour sensitivity
for a chance of a little affection with thee
My
stomach is a carnival when I'm with you
red and orange and vibrant gold entwined in my heart
And
you don't mind that I'm a little bit crazy
which is lovely because I'm mad about you

im a slave to my scars and the tears that fall from my eyes
im a slave to the people who told me I didnt matter
and the children who didn't let me play
im a slave to the ones who laugh and joke
and a slave to my body and the aches that haunt me through the night
but I wont be a slave to the prison inside my head