I didn't want to go to school, because I wanted to be an artist

Host: The train rattled through the city’s edge, where brick factories met graffiti walls, and the evening light hung low like a bruise over the skyline. The air was heavy with iron dust, the kind that settles deep into your skin and refuses to leave.

Inside the carriage, a rhythm of wheels on tracks played beneath their silence. Jack sat by the window, a sketchpad on his lap, his grey eyes tracing the lines of the passing buildings as if memorizing every crack.

Across from him, Jeeny leaned against the cold glass, her reflection flickering between stations — half dream, half doubt.

The city outside looked tired, but alive. Every wall, every corner, told a story painted in colors the system never taught.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet for an hour, Jack. What are you drawing?”

Jack: “Nothing finished. Just ideas that’ll never make it past the sketchbook.”

Host: She smiled faintly, though her eyes softened with something like ache.

Jeeny: “Sounds familiar. I used to be like that — always sketching in margins. Then life convinced me to trade pencils for paychecks.”

Jack: “Life or fear?”

Jeeny: “Both.”

Host: The train jolted; the lights flickered, then steadied. Jeeny reached into her bag, pulled out a folded clipping from an old interview — the paper creased and yellowed.

Jeeny: “Do you know what Kali Uchis said once? ‘I didn’t want to go to school, because I wanted to be an artist, and they were never going to teach me art. None of my family had ever done that kind of stuff either.’”

Jack: “I read that. Sounds romantic — until you realize how brutal that choice actually is.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But isn’t it worse to never choose at all?”

Jack: “Depends on what you’re choosing between — freedom or survival.”

Host: He turned a page. The sketch revealed a crumbling apartment building covered in murals — bright colors bleeding through concrete decay.

Jack: “I used to think art could save me. Turns out, the rent collector disagreed.”

Jeeny: “You sound like every dreamer who gave up pretending they weren’t one.”

Jack: “And you sound like someone still trying to prove that not giving up makes it easier.”

Host: Her laughter was soft but sharp, like glass underfoot.

Jeeny: “You think artists are naïve.”

Jack: “No. I think they’re brave. But bravery doesn’t pay tuition, or groceries, or family debts. You can’t eat dreams, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But without them, everything tastes like cardboard.”

Host: The train slowed. The lights outside turned to golden streaks as they passed a row of old warehouses, each one painted with wild, defiant art — faces of forgotten revolutionaries, lovers, and ghosts.

Jeeny: “Look at that.”

Jack: “Street vandalism.”

Jeeny: “Street poetry.”

Jack: “Illegal poetry.”

Jeeny: “Every real poem starts illegal, Jack. Every artist breaks a rule before they find a truth.”

Host: His jaw tightened. He wanted to disagree, but something in those murals — the fierce color, the rebellion — mirrored his own quiet longing.

Jack: “You think the system hates artists because we make noise?”

Jeeny: “No. Because you make meaning. The system thrives on motion, not reflection. Artists remind people to stop and feel. That’s dangerous.”

Jack: “So, what, the answer is to drop everything? Quit jobs, skip school, starve for the sake of truth?”

Jeeny: “Not starve. Transform. That’s what Kali meant. She didn’t run from education — she ran from conformity. She didn’t want to learn how to paint inside the lines when she was born to question the frame.”

Host: A faint chord from a busker’s guitar echoed in the train car as it slowed into the next station. The melody hung in the air like smoke.

Jack: “My father used to tell me, ‘Dreams are for people with safety nets.’ He worked every day of his life in a factory that smelled like oil and regret. The only art he respected was the kind that put food on the table.”

Jeeny: “And did he ever ask what it cost him to live that way?”

Jack: “No. And I never asked either.”

Host: The train doors opened with a sigh. A young kid boarded — spray cans clinking in his backpack. His hands were stained with paint, his eyes alive with hunger and defiance. Jeeny watched him sit at the far end of the car, headphones in, sketching on his phone.

Jeeny: “See him? That’s the next Kali Uchis. Or the next Van Gogh. Or no one at all. But he’s trying. And that’s more honest than most of us ever get.”

Jack: “You think that matters in the end?”

Jeeny: “Of course it does. Because even if he fails, he’ll have lived his story — not one handed to him.”

Jack: “You talk like creation is a religion.”

Jeeny: “It is. It’s faith in yourself, when no one else sees it.”

Host: The rhythm of the train grew slower, heavier. The city outside was dark now — only fragments of neon, puddles, and reflection.

Jack: “You ever regret not becoming what you wanted?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But I regret more the parts of me that died trying to be something else.”

Host: He looked at her then — really looked — and for a moment, saw the truth behind her calm: that she was still that girl with paint-stained fingers, buried under layers of responsibility and routine.

Jack: “Maybe I should’ve dropped out too.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you still can — not from school, but from expectation.”

Jack: “And what then? Draw for no one? Paint walls that’ll be whitewashed by morning?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because art doesn’t need applause, Jack. It needs air. It needs to breathe, to live, to be seen — even for one night.”

Host: The train stopped again. The kid with the spray cans got off, disappearing into the wet streets — another ghost in pursuit of color.

Jeeny: “He’s brave, isn’t he?”

Jack: “Or foolish.”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. But that’s what it takes.”

Host: Jack turned back to his sketchpad. His pencil moved differently now — freer, imperfect, alive. The lines weren’t technical anymore; they trembled, curved, reached.

Jeeny watched quietly, smiling, as if something long dormant had finally cracked open.

Jeeny: “There. That’s it. That’s what you were meant to do.”

Jack: “Draw?”

Jeeny: “No. Remember.”

Host: The train began to slow for the final stop. The city lights flickered in the glass — reflections of something both lost and found.

Jack closed his sketchbook.

Jack: “You think it’s too late to start over?”

Jeeny: “Only if you keep waiting for permission.”

Host: Outside, the rain began again — gentle, rhythmic, forgiving. The graffiti walls blurred past, colors melting into one another, as if the whole world were painting itself back to life.

Jack smiled faintly, the first real smile in years.

Jack: “You know… maybe school was never supposed to teach us art.”

Jeeny: “Of course not. Art was supposed to teach us ourselves.”

Host: The doors opened, and they stepped into the cool night — two grown children walking beneath the dripping eaves of a city that didn’t understand them, but whose walls still sang their names in color.

And as the train pulled away behind them, leaving trails of light and sound, one truth lingered like the echo of a brushstroke in the dark:

that to choose art over comfort is not to rebel against the world — but to finally, bravely, belong to your own.