We Don’t Do Fire Drills Anymore

By Breckyn Forcey

We don’t do fire drills anymore.
We do lockdowns.
Lights off.
Doors locked.
Hearts hammering
like warning bells
in our chests.

We sit
criss-crossed and quiet
under whiteboards filled
with math problems
and the unsaid.

We are learning
how to survive
a classroom
instead of how to trust one.

And still,
they call us dramatic.

Tell us
we’re too emotional
when we ask
why pencils have to share space
with trauma kits.

They say
“Now’s not the time to talk about it,”
but now
is all we have.

Because next time
is always loading.

We have seen
too many headlines
become tombstones.
Too many names
become hashtags.
Too many backpacks
become body bags
while politicians
offer thoughts
and sell votes.

Tell me,
how do you measure
the weight of a bullet
in a child’s mind?

How do you teach fractions
in a room
where grief
keeps outgrowing the desks?

How do you say
“Good morning”
to a room of kids
when you’ve spent the night
reading drills
like lesson plans?

I used to think
danger looked like monsters
under the bed.

Now
it wears a hoodie.
Carries a semi-automatic.
Walks into school
like it belongs there.

And somehow,
the answer
is always more guns.
More guards.
More walls.

But never
more empathy.
Never
more care.
Never
more reasons
for kids to want to live
long enough
to graduate.

They arm teachers
before they pay them.
Blame doors
before they blame access.

They ask us
to be brave
in a country
that won’t be honest.

And still,
we rise.

We write poems
in the margins of notebooks
we might never fill.

We hug our parents
like goodbyes
have a schedule.

We take our tests
with trembling hands
and trauma
tucked behind our IDs.

And still,
we show up.

Because we believe
in futures
they’ve forgotten
how to protect.

We believe
in halls filled
with laughter,
not lockdowns.

In schools
that shape minds,
not eulogies.

We believe
there is power
in naming the hurt
before it buries us.

We are not
the generation of fear.
We are the generation
that knows exactly
what it costs
to keep pretending
we’re fine.

We are not
waiting for permission
to be safe.

We are the echo
in every silence
you tried to bury.

The question
that doesn’t flinch.

The grief
that demands change.

And we
are not done
rising.