hi im shanara, I'm just your average highschool girl. I never really had very many friends and I would be picked on quite a lot. My life was just any average one of that of a teenage girl. I eventually came across social media and used that as my way of escaping reality. I made online friends and talked to them and didn't really socialize with others I met face to face. One day i had started talking to this guy his name was trey, he was only a few month older the me about 5-6 months older we started chatting everyday and we eventually started getting along really well, he would be the person i go to, to talk to about my day and when id have a bad day he would always make me laugh, him and i eventually became best friends and got to know each other really well. One day i had had a rough day at school and just wanted to get back home and tell trey about it i had just lost someone who i was friends with and rumors were getting spread about me through the school and people would stare at me and laugh, i was never really quit sure what the rumors are and until this day i still have no idea. I had got home from school and plopped down onto my bed and i opened my laptop and googled in the browser “instagram” i had logged into my account and messaged him and told him about my day, he had replied with “i have had a hard day at school as well my girlfriend cheated on me” i felt really bad for him even though i didn't know very much his relationship. Eventually i had headed to bed because i was tired and i had school the next day, later on the next day the day was almost over and i put my stuff in my backpack and got my books and left to head home, as soon as i got home once again i whipped my laptop out just like i had everyday before and one of my friends had put on their story “send c” if u care about me i replied with “C” and got sent a chain where i had to put the same thing on my story and send a photo i had only sent a photo of a character from a game as no one knew what i looked like in real life, after i had put it on my story trey had replied with “C” to my story and i sent himt the same chain thing i was sent and he put it on his story and sent a photo of him to me.. After he had sent the photo i had freaked out because he was a boy i knew at school and hed hang out with my friend group but eventually stopped hanging out with us quit some time ago as i freaked out i typed “OMG YOU GO TO THE EXACT SAME SCHOOL AS ME!” he became shocked at this point in time and said “who are you, what do u mean” i told him “i'm shanra” as he never knew my real name or what i looked like because id go After he had sent the photo i had freaked out because he was a boy i knew at school and hed hang out with my friend group but eventually stopped hanging out with us quit some time ago as i freaked out i typed “OMG YOU GO TO THE EXACT SAME SCHOOL AS ME!” he became shocked at this point in time and said “who are you, what do u mean” i told him “i'm shanra” as he never knew my real name or what i looked like because id go by a game character with the name Shad treys reply to this was “send me a photo of you” and i was still in shock at this time, eventually i sent him a photo and told him who i hung out with. The next while at school I tried to avoid him and not bump into him, But we all know how that had turned out. I bumped into him after taking my friend to the bus stop. After all this he'd call out my name whenever he would see me and I would still continuously try to avoid him but that didn't go as planned. Eventually after me and trey finding out who each other were we decided to start hanging out and his Ex did not like this at all, she didn't like me at all if i'm being honest because she eventually started bullying me shortly after but i decided to just ignore her which would make her furious. Eventually the school yeah came to an end and me and trey were inseparable wed hug a lot and we both knew we felt the exact same way about each other, on the last day off school was the last day we got to see each other, or so i thought one night i was at a friends house and i was just texting trey and he knew i was upset and this was late at night, He had stopped replying to me for awhile and i was sitting in the dark of the night at the park, Suddenly i heard my name called out and i knew the voice all too well, It was trey he had rode his bike from willaston all the way to evanston just to make me feel better, This made me really happy. Eventually after all of this the day after christmas (boxing day) he had asked me out and i had said yes and we started dating each other and ever since the we have been together for almost 2 year hes now turned sixteen and ill be turning sixteen in a few months and the relationship has been amazing since that day all though we argue sometimes but we always work it out with a talk and a hug.

I am staring at the Van Gogh Picture as the dawn breaks in a sleepy little university town called Shantiniketan. After being holed up for months at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic (and immunocompromised family members), I feel like I can breathe again. I experience a rather unfamiliar sound at midnight- the sound of a barking deer. The house I am staying in has a haunted tale of its own. Many years ago, Maloti, an accomplished dancer and academic, died by suicide here. The neighbours attribute it to a lovers' tiff. Out of curiosity, a fifteen year old me delved into research about this mythical and mysterious Maloti. Maloti was as beautiful as she was sophisticated, with razor- sharp wit. She cared very little for social niceties and turned heads, wherever she went. "She was a true artist", said one of her uncles when I met him. " A true artist misunderstood by the world." Those words left quite an impression on me- a young person chasing their own dreams. Unlike Maloti, I wasn't an accomplished artist- but a young person that harboured those dreams. Even daring to articulate those dreams would be met with ridicule, and sneery value judgements. Wanting to prove myself and ultimately being burdened with the weight of other people's expectations, trying to be true to myself and authentic and being cut short by people in positions of power. Wanting to break away and experience freedoms but knowing that fending for myself would involve taking the already trodden path. I had already experienced the disdain that artists were met with. I read of freedoms in books and watched it in movies, but I wondered if a life like that would be possible for me. Sunflowers fascinate me. The reason they do is because wherever the sun moves, the sunflower turns its head to face the sun. In the biting cold, it is hard to think of sunflower fields. The first time I took comfort in looking at bits of a sunflower was when I chanced upon Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern Art Gallery in London. I was then a 21 year old university student, with barely any money, and big dreams. The art installation was a commentary on the mass production of Chinese goods and how they were subsequently sent to western countries. Each sunflower seed was crafted with porcelain and the feeling evoked by witnessing and experiencing that piece of art was understanding that artists could pour their frustrations and political thoughts into their work. That their art indeed was, political. I realised that my writing and my own art could become a tool through which I could shake off my own oppressions- being a woman, being a person of colour, being a young person whose work and words were not taken seriously, an individual who had no wishes to conform but was forced to do so, being reminded again and again through paperwork and through legislation that if I did not toe the line, if I wanted more for myself than was acceptable by my surroundings and my current context, the situation for me would prove to be dire. I sought my own experiences and my own joys from the world. What books could not teach me, I sought to teach myself. I worked in villages in India with no clean drinking water for months. I slept under the stars on a quiet night sky- the sound of lethal mosquitoes buzzing above my head. I worked with asylum seekers and refugees, which was actually one of the redeeming features of my week. Here is an excerpt of a letter I wrote to a friend, describing that time of my life : "Every day, I see ordinary people -people like you and I-wearing tattered clothes, with paint on their faces and pencils tucked behind their ears, sweating it out. There's this boy I see every day, he's about eighteen and if given a choice, he'd probably want to go to college as well. He often stops me on the street and asks me about what I study and I think he's quite a bright spark- and then I think about all the people back home, who should get an education and are not, it makes me very sad. I hope I don't grow into one of those people who shuts everything out and never does anything constructive by way of ensuring that kids are educated and well looked after. And working with children of refugees actually makes one understand how destitute these kids really are, unsheltered, unprotected, not knowing what tomorrow holds for them. Some children have never known their own homes, being carried from one shelter to another; they come from countries like Ghana, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, The Ivory Coast. Many of their parents have been intellectuals in their own country, they have spoken out against dictatorial regimes, they have condemned massacres, some of them will be executed as soon as they set foot on their home soil again. Most of these people are Asylum Seekers i.e. those who have not even been granted Refugee Status. Some are condemned because of their homosexuality and others, because of their religion." I hope I never stop feeling.