A Letter to My Home

Dear America, 

It’s hard to know exactly what I want to say to you. I woke up this morning despairing, knowing that the worst would come. After all these years, I’ve learned to expect the worst. Well, Trump won. Again. I feel really numb. Numb or angry. It makes me sad to think about how happy and relieved I would have been had Harris won, had we gotten to escape what my mom refers to as the “Orange Menace.” However, if she had won, it would have been a mirage. Trumpism is here to stay. If you don’t see that, you’re not looking. By god, he won the popular vote. 

What I do know is that I’m scared. But I’m not scared the way I was when I was fourteen. Back then, watching Trump get elected for the first time, I had a nightmare. It consisted of my friend and I seeing him arrive at our neighborhood mall, surrounded by press and secret security. Seeing him, my blood ran cold, and I ran into the women’s bathroom—the only place I knew he couldn’t enter. Although, in the dream, I didn’t have words to describe the reasoning behind the feeling, I recognized it well enough: fear. Cold, chilling fear turned my blood to ice. Now, looking back, I think that I was afraid that he’d rape me. Again, I was fourteen, witnessing his rise amid the Me Too movement. I thought that, to get ahead, I’d have to give up my body. I’d have to let men like Trump stick their fingers in my pussy. My mom wanted to work in the White House when she was my age. My grandmother didn’t want her to, because there were rumors about how the girl interns all ended up naked on their boss’ couch. My mom didn’t want to work there that badly. But I do. I thought it was inevitable. If I wanted to have a career that sated my ambitions, I’d have to let men like Trump put their fingers inside of me. 

Since then, I know that’s not true. I don’t have to strip, but I’ve also learned that my body isn’t my own. Currently, I work at a liquor store. Men leer at me. Stare at my breasts. At my ass. Ask me if I want to get a drink with them, although they’re fifty years my senior. I know what they’re imagining. You may have thought that that fifteen-year-old girl, dreaming of hiding from Trump in a bathroom, was naive, but this 23-year-old girl is anything but. I can’t help but think of the president-elect’s words: “Grab’em by the pussy.” How many of those old men fantasize about using their wrinkled, old fingers to grab mine? 

Waking up again to Trump’s win, so many years after he won the first time, I’m reminded of how much I’ve grown. I was sad then, heartbroken. I spent the day wandering around in a haze, terrified at what this meant for my country. Now, eight years later, I know. And I'm not sad anymore. I spent the day at the liquor store, where I only caught two people staring at my breasts, and I even laughed a few times. My manager gave me some distance, knowing I was upset, but I wasn’t sad. I was angry. Angry at those who elected the “Orange Menace” to the presidency, and angry at those still pretending to be shocked. 

But, that being said, I’m angry at a hell of a lot more.

I’m angry at the hurt he’s already caused. I remember my father and I got into a discussion over the summer, where he reminded me, as he often does, that, “This is the best time to be alive.” I mostly agree with him, except for the fact that I’m worse off now than I was six years ago. I had more rights then. Can you imagine that, for a moment? I have less rights than I did six years ago. 

I’m angry at the fear I feel for the future. My grandmother asked me at Christmas this past year, “Do girls your age know what a world before Roe was like?” The obvious answer is, “No.” No, we don’t. I have grown up being told that I could do whatever I wanted, that the sky was the limit, that all the glass ceilings that still existed would shatter the minute I touched them. That’s not the reality. America has told me, and girls like me, that we can’t do anything we want. I’m scared of returning to the world that my grandmother grew up in, where women were allowed three careers—nurse, teacher, secretary—and each of those ended the minute someone knocked you up. I’m not going to live that life. I’m not going to bite my tongue anymore. I’m not going to be the sweet, doe-eyed girl that oozes sweetness like a pimple oozes pus, not if the male-led government tries to restrict my bodily autonomy. I’ve been told my whole life that I can be whatever I want, and I’m going to do just that. I’ve been promised a seat at the table, and I’m going to take it. 

So, to Trump and Vance and everyone who wants girls like me to stop over-reacting and just relax: If you don’t give me my share of the world, I’ll rip it from your fingers. 

Sincerely, 

Your daughter