Mom I’m home,
Guess what I learned in class today?
I learned what rooms are safest for hiding.
I learned what it sounds like to hear my classmates scream.
I learned what it looks like when the bodies of my friends fall
like pretend soldiers that were never meant for a real war.

Mom, today I learned what war looks like,
because now it looks like our schools.
We wear bulletproof backpacks and carry
textbooks over our heads.
Our base is rigged with smoke bombs to
disorient our enemies and
little black boxes to let them know when we are safe.

Mom, today I learned the meaning of fear.
It means never seeing you again, or Dad.
It means sending texts in between clutching other people’s hands
as we all try to keep quiet as we quiver in the closets.
It means not knowing if the sounds outside the door are
another tortured orphan, another lone wolf,
or the sounds of our saviors coming to bring us home.

Mom, today I learned that I must fight.
I must fight for the future that I want to see.
I must fight for my friends, for other kids,
and for our right to live.
I must fight for Alyssa,
for Scott,
for Martin,
for Nicholas, Aaron, and Jaime.
I must fight for Peter,
for Joaquin,
for Cara, Gina, Luke, and Alaina.
I must fight for Meadow,
for Helena,
Alex, Carmen, Chris,
and all of the other students that won’t be coming home from school.
WE must fight for Parkland, for Sandy Hook, for Columbine, for Marshall County,
and all of the other schools that turned into historical battlegrounds.
Because this is history.

We are all actors if we continue to pretend that everything is okay.
We are all actors if we continue to think that anyone with a gun license
should be able to purchase an assault rifle,
though they continue use it on kids who haven’t even gotten their driver’s licenses yet.
Those of us here today, we are actors because we are fighting for what is right,
we are fighting to have our voices heard and our demands met.
But they are the ones who are acting.
They act like we are to blame for our own murders.
They act like the solution isn’t right in front of them.
They act like school shootings can be fixed with more guns.

No more.
No more guns in our schools.
No more wondering if we’ll make it off campus today.
No more hoping that the world won’t forget their names.
No more fearing for our lives in a place that should be dedicated to educating us,
to bettering us, and to connecting us.
No more.