Before I die I want to…

The expression Before I die I want to… appears as an unfinished sentence on a vast public chalkboard, asking passersby to supply their own endings. In the scene at the Before I Die chalk-writing wall, the prompt gathers anonymous hopes and private fears in the same place; Theodore Finch and Violet Markey each add lines that disclose what is difficult for them to say directly. Its blanks do not resolve what makes a life meaningful. Instead, they make the question visible, communal, and open to revision.

The Wall and Its Invitation

The prompt occupies a wall running the length of a large, old factory building that looks abandoned. It is written in giant white letters above columns of sentences beginning Before I die I want to, each followed by a blank. The entries are in different handwriting and different colors of chalk, already smudged and half melted by rain and snow. The setting makes the exercise feel exposed to weather and public use: these declarations are not preserved as polished statements, but remain vulnerable to the conditions around them.

The unfinished line gives each writer the same structure without prescribing the answer. Its repeated opening makes the entries legible as parts of one shared display, while each completion supplies a distinct measure of what matters to its author. Because the blank can hold a practical aim, a private longing, or a single urgent word, the prompt accommodates differences without turning them into a single explanation of life. The wall is at once a collection of individual handwriting and an invitation to join it.

A Public Catalogue of Wishes

As Finch and Violet walk along the wall, the existing responses range from familiar hopes to deliberately impossible or abstract ambitions. Some writers want children, a pet giraffe, a home in London, a trip to New York City, or the ability to play piano and speak French. Others want to skydive, divide by zero, travel to another planet, become better parents than their own, feel good about themselves, or know equality. The final one-word entry, Live, compresses the prompt to its starkest possible answer.

That range matters to the scene: a wish for an ordinary skill stands beside a wish that cannot be accomplished in an ordinary way, and both are given the same line. The wall does not rank the entries or explain who wrote them. Rain and snow have already blurred some of the chalk, so the record is visibly temporary as well as collective. The sentence gives each wish a public form, but does not guarantee that it will be fulfilled or even remain clear.

Finch and Violet Make Room

When Finch hands Violet a piece of blue chalk, she says, “There’s no space left.” His answer, “So we make some,” turns the wall’s physical limit into an instruction. He writes the opening and a blank, repeats it, and continues until he has made a dozen more spaces. He then imagines carrying the writing onto the front of the building and down its other side. His proposal expands the exercise rather than treating the filled wall as a reason to stop.

Finch explains that it is a way to figure out why they are there, and Violet understands that he means more than their presence on that sidewalk. The exchange gives the prompt an inward reach without replacing its concrete action: they are standing before a wall, making room with chalk. Finch’s own entries disclose ambitions that are not interchangeable. He wants to play guitar like Jimmy Page, write a song that will change the world, find the Great Manifesto, count for something, become the person he is meant to be and have that be enough, know what it is like to have a best friend, and matter. The lines move between creative achievement, self-understanding, connection, and significance; together, they show how much he is asking the unfinished sentence to hold.

Violet stands reading for a long time before writing her own answers: Stop being afraid, Stop thinking too much, Fill the holes left behind, Drive again, Write, and Breathe. The list is closely tied to her circumstances in this scene. Fear and overthinking appear beside the practical goal of driving again, while writing and breathing offer brief, direct formulations rather than elaborate plans. Her lines make recovery part of the wall’s catalogue of possible wants without presenting it as complete or effortless.

A Wish, a Retreat, and a Contradiction

Finch stands so close behind Violet that she can feel his breath. He adds that he wants to know a perfect day, then steps back to read the line and returns to add another wish: to meet Boy Parade. Before Violet can respond, he laughs, rubs that entry out, and replaces it with a more personal declaration: that he wants to kiss Violet Markey. The sequence moves from an abstract ideal to a reference she recognizes and then to a direct expression of desire. The chalk makes the wish public between them before either has to decide what to do about it.

Violet waits for him to erase the last line too. Instead, Finch drops the chalk and brushes the dust from his hands onto his jeans. He looks at her mouth, and she finds herself hoping he will kiss her. The scene registers her response as a physical and emotional change, while her comparison with kissing Ryan Cross reminds the reader that she is considering what intimacy with Finch might mean. Finch does not kiss her there. He says, “Not here. Not now,” and jogs toward the car; once inside, he tells her, “Before you get any ideas, that doesn’t mean I like you.”

The prompt therefore produces an intimate disclosure but not a settled relationship. Finch writes the wish, leaves it on the wall, and then verbally denies what Violet might infer from it, while his hesitation and attention to her mouth complicate that denial. The unfinished sentence remains open in a way the exchange does not: the chalk records what he wants, but neither the writing nor the scene supplies a simple resolution. Its significance lies in bringing their separate lists into one shared space, where fears, ambitions, and attraction can be stated before they can be fully acted upon.