The alarm goes off
like it’s new,
like we haven’t been training for disaster
our whole lives.
We know how to run,
how to hide,
how to laugh through lockdowns
like it’s just another Tuesday.
The teachers hush our jokes,
but we are fourteen,
already fluent in irony.
We know where the exits are.
We know which desks
won’t stop a bullet.
We know
this is normal
and that’s the worst part.
Tanisha Bose is a teenage poet exploring identity, survival, and silence through raw, lyrical verse. Their work has been previously published in Blue Marble Review, Merion West etc.