Muscle Memory 

8 October 2026

This spoken word piece is a response to John Riches' essay Voices of Change, which forms part of a wider conversation within A New Direction’s Leading with Purpose: Cultural Education in Practice Programme - a series of publications, conversations and events exploring the future of leadership in cultural education.

The poem was written by Nikol following conversations with 16 members of Hackney Empire’s Taking the Lead Youth Collective. Nikol is a writer and performer from Hackney who explores themes of mental health, access and protest in their work.

Muscle Memory

By Nikol Szablewska

The sun’s set

The clock’s ticking

and you have like

One

More problem to solve

The paperwork’s standing tall

As the street falls apart just a glance away from your window

Your street.

Your window.

And the worst part is that

you

know.

After this you’re done for the day,

Except

You’re never really done for the day.

Privilege doesn’t sleep

And it’s always

That deep.

What if in the mean time

I could’ve done more?

Been better?

Provided something no one ever has before?

In fact,

when I think too long

I become a problem I can’t solve myself.

I’m drowning in a cause lost in the means used to save it

But lamenting is rarely productive,

Getting up feels more like it.

See -

When you dream you’re gonna change a lonely world

What you miss is

How you were supposed to fix loneliness alone.

On your ones

When people

are hope.

What is speaking

When it is in rooms that cannot hear us as we are?

Rooms that are home to empty promises

Corporate motivations to dilute our dreams?

Where ’one’ has become central

Where ‘one’ means you’re completely alone in the ideas you uphold

No one to question the mould

There is space for those who lust after control

To take all there is to own

To recycle the same anxieties

Same lives

Same thoughts

Same crimes.

And treat people like property.

Or -

Despite

I becoming the usual

We become more in need of each other.

Call it what you want

We have here a blessing undercover

The chance to build reality

Unlike the one we wander.

A reality of grace given

Wages paid

Stability in a very scary age.

Community is muscle memory -

You might forget what it feels like to be whole

But it can take minutes to feel involved.

Finally, no one to say that the clothes you wore had any impact on how we heard the words you spoke.

When it is one voice

That decides

Who’s voice matters and who’s dies

There is no need to clarify -

It’s pretty clear that we’ve lost the why.

Culture cannot be shaped by one,

It is nothing without many.

That’s where we lead.

Ditch the mould,

Turn out the seams.

Forget what you thought was the peak of what we could achieve,

Cuz we’re a new colour scheme.

If the limits were established to not include me,

Imagine what happens now.

You are

The missing piece.

But trust is not built on words alone.

Languages take time to learn

It will take time until

We learn what it means to serve people fluently

Until everybody feels security

First with the basic necessities

Then with who they truly be

Until we show consistently

That you could take a break,

And take the lead

That it won’t hurt to speak your mind

And if it does it won’t be cuz someone’s stepping on the dream.

It hurts a little to voice your needs.

I’m not sure it’s the same

If you don’t know what it means

To have much less but refuse to be locked out of the means

Create space to express individuality,

Give grief the time to breathe,

Connect people so that bonds become family,

Show access to career paths in the rooms you finally lead

Now a person in the crowd feels seen.

There you are

Taking your place in the puzzle

Struggling all the same but holding up a little piece of the world

A leader of the people who love what you fight for

A vivid dreamer

Strong believer

Never back down from what seems impossible achiever.

The world is brighter where you walk.

You give me hope.

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Leading with Purpose: Cultural Education in Practice is a free resource for cultural educators that includes a collection of observations, studies, analysis and practical tools. It can be accessed and downloaded for free from A New Direction’s website here.