I could almost hear the gunshots echo in my brain. That’s the downfall of a child that begins every thought with their imagination. I could see the people running and the backpacks falling. I could see my brother screaming and my boyfriend fleeing. A text that read “we’re on lockdown idk why” turned into a scene from a horror movie playing over and over in my brain. It wasn’t just the feature film that played in my head for over a day that turned my views to what they are. It might of been the day my brother didn’t go to school because the color-coded hit list a student had drawn up had my brother’s lunch on it. It had to be the story my friend told me while sitting on the bench on my front porch. She was wearing a tank top that read “ Stoneman Strong” with a red and white eagle sitting below it. What she told me I shouldn’t say, it’s not my story, not my trauma, not my pain.

  Some days while I walk through the hallways all I can see is that horror movie, all I think about is how there is no possible way I could make it to the door or how they can’t possibly secure the cafeteria. Most days I’m normal, most days I don’t look for a masked man hiding in the crowd. But some days I’m human, some days I don't want to go to school because I’m aware that behind the schoolyard ignorance a war zone is hidden. Most people call it paranoia I call it self defense.

   It’s hard to defend yourself with childhood karate class kicks when you live in a world run by prison systems and politics. “You’ll understand when you’re older”, I didn’t know morality had to age like fine wine. We are not drowning in our youth we are basking in it. Not the beautiful ignorance but the opportunity it presents. The opportunity to be new. To fix what's hurting us.

  I don’t know what I’ll know when I'm older but I know what I see now. Use us to see. Use us while you can before our ignorance is snatched. Don’t waste our fear. Don’t waste our truths because soon they will turn to lies. My truth is hope. Hope that I will have the strength to be kind and care about humanity. Don’t let my hope expire  because it’s young, use it cause it is young. 

     Youth is a gift of sight in 2019. We see school hallways filled with news stories and we see our friends run from deportation. We see fear not blinded by a nine to five or the cries of a baby. We scream at others gunshot wounds because we know it could of been us.We scream because It could be us.We see the most sick parts of our reality walk right down our school hallways and we want to fix them. We need to fix them. You need to fix them.

    I will probably understand the cruelty of adulthood in 15 years but I might not be able to grasp the torture of screaming with reason and nobody caring because we hold school IDs instead of a state ones. Don’t judge us on our age but on our words and our screams. Admire that we are not used to cruelty. Use our innocence and work with our fear. Do not humor us. Help us honor our opinions and our right to change. Please do not dismiss us.