NIGHT OWL
I have seen war through the eyes of my classmates—people who come from countries that are currently in conflict. They don’t always talk about it directly. Sometimes it’s a silence that arrives when the conversation turns to “home,” or a pause when someone’s phone lights up with a message they’re afraid to open. Sometimes it’s the way they carry ordinary moments with a kind of quiet alertness, as if their bodies learned a different definition of normal long before they ever walked into a classroom like this one.
In their eyes, I’ve seen courage and hope. I’ve also seen sadness, fear, and a bravery that isn’t cinematic. It doesn’t look like heroic speeches or dramatic music. It looks like showing up to class after a sleepless night because your family is in a place where sirens aren’t rare. It looks like studying for an exam while the group chat back home fills with updates you can’t control.
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