Im Just a Kid

I wrote this to explain how work has made me feel lately.

"I'm Just a Kid"
by an Anonymous Firefighter

I'm just a kid.
Well, 22—no, 23 this month—
But they expect me to be rock solid,
Unshaken. Unbreakable.

I'm just a kid,
Yet I run into burning buildings
To save strangers.
To fight back chaos with bare hands and borrowed time.

You can’t imagine
What it’s like to roll up to an apartment fire
And have some bystander yell—
"Do your f***ing job!"
Like I didn’t just get off the truck,
Like I’m not already dying inside.

You can't imagine
Hearing someone’s trapped.
Being told to go in, to go now.
Feeling your heart try to claw its way out
While you search smoke-choked halls
For a voice that never answers.

You can't imagine
Finishing a search and finding no one—
And still praying the next team doesn’t find a body
Where you already looked.

You can’t imagine
Standing on a burning, rain-slick roof
In the middle of a storm,
Holding a pike pole,
Knowing one wrong step
And you might not go home.

You can’t imagine
Arriving at a rollover with an ejection,
And someone says—
“There was a kid. We can’t find them.”
So you search the dark, the oil fields,
Calling for a name you’ll never know.

You can’t imagine
Hearing over the radio
That your friend just got hit by a car.
You can’t imagine
Putting their gear back in the locker,
Not knowing if you’ll ever see them again.

All of this.
At 22.
And that’s not even half the calls.