Whoever Said It Was Easy
Getting out of bed, on time,
eating breakfast
if you’re lucky,
jump in the shower,
pack your bag,
brush your teeth,
look in the mirror,
check for spots,
do your hair,
open the door,
wrap up warm,
say goodbye,
step out your house and
bop to the bus stop, all the while looking cool?
That’s hard,
all of that, five
days a week
is hard.
Getting on the bus and being cussed because
your team lost the night before
or the trainers that you’re wearing represent
what your mum and dad can’t afford
or your jumper, shirt and trousers were what your
older brother was wearing the year before
or there’s a girl sitting two seats behind you that you’ve
fancied for two years and you know that she has her
hair in a bun on Mondays and Thursdays, wears eye
shadow on a Friday but doesn’t get the bus
home because of drama class, yet she
doesn’t even know your name?
That’s hard,
all of that, five
days a week
is hard.
Sitting in class, and no matter how hard you
try you just can’t understand what’s going on,
or you’re studying so many subjects in one afternoon you get confused,
or the pressure of hitting those high grades just to hold down that uni place,
that’s hard.
Having the answer to the one question that at
some point in your school life you will be asked:
‘What do you want to be when you leave?’
To even have an inkling of an answer,
that’s hard.
But what’s really hard,
what is incredibly hard,
what is University Challenge hard
is when you know what you want,
when you know what you want to be,
whatever that may be, but
it seems everyone around
you wants to tell you
you can’t,
you can’t.
‘You can’t do that,
people like you
don’t do that.
I’ve never done that, so
you can’t do that,
you can’t.’
It’s as delicate as an egg, balanced on the
slight curvature of a spoon, then
placed into a race on school
sports day.
A plant trying to lay roots in shallow soil subjected to wind.
A thin plastic black and white 99p football that
makes a ping when kicked and goes off in the wrong
direction, floating in slow motion into a bush full of
stinging nettles, watched by a rabble of open-
mouthed young boys.
An adult robin, leaving a nest full of chicks
unattended for a split second, under the
swooping shadow of a magpie.
All because
someone says:
‘White boys don’t make rappers,
black boys don’t make painters,
brown boys don’t make footballers,
girls don’t sit on boards of big business,
state school kids don’t make prime ministers.’
For every one can, there must be about a thousand can’ts.
That’s like a one in one thousand chance of
making a can an actuality.
It’s like trying to hum your own tune in a packed
stadium singing a football chant.
That one can is still a chance and I would rather fail
knowing that I’d at least tried than give in to
the voices telling me that I can’t,
and there’s a lot of them,
and yes, it is hard,
but it gets
easier.
(c) Paul Cree 2023