Glass Doors

Morning spills through the glass doors,

kids dragging backpacks twice their size,

shoelaces untied,

someone clutching a permission slip like it’s gold.

I sit behind a desk,

guardian of crayons and backpacks,

answering phones,

bandaging paper cuts,

laughing with parents in the doorway.

On the outside, it all looks so normal.

But I rage at the glass—

so easy to break,

so easy to enter—

while this country asks children

to memorize spelling words

and escape routes in the same breath.

I watch the news at night,

and the names carve themselves into my chest.

Names that should be yelled across playgrounds,

scribbled on birthday cards,

called over loudspeakers for early dismissal—

but instead, they’re hymns etched in desks

that will never feel elbows again.

And I would give anything—

blood, bone, my last heartbeat—

to be the wall they can’t break through,

the lock that never falters,

the shield that swallows fire

before it reaches their hands.

But the silence after sirens

is louder than my love.

It drifts through the swing sets,

sits heavy in the lunchroom,

fills the empty chairs like fog.

And tomorrow I’ll still be here,

trying to hold steady

to a school that deserves to stay ordinary.