I wrote this blog post several weeks ago before the inauguration. I held back publishing it because I was angry. And I try not to do things out of anger. So, since today is Valentine’s Day, I’m going to publish this out of love. Love for the people who bravely stand up to injustice and love for all those that I promise to stand for in the coming days, weeks, months, and years. 

Yesterday, I read some articles and a book. Today, I read a poem. By Eliza Chavez. Her words are amazing and healing for those of us who are hurting and scared about what’s coming for the next 4 years in our country. Go and read it. Now.

And, no. I don’t want to hear how you think we’re all scared and nervous for no reason. I don’t want to hear how you think that we’re overreacting. I don’t want to hear your reasons as to why you support white supremacism, men controlling women’s bodies from the senate floor and the oval office, I don’t want to hear it. Because for as much as you claim you don’t, your actions speak louder that any word-smithing you could throw my way. You’ve silenced so many of us for so long because you have benefitted from the oppression of everyone else.

I am storing up all the energy I can muster for the next 4 years. Because I will do all in my power to make these next 4 years miserable for anyone who wants to control my body, or the bodies of other women, or the bodies of minorities, or the bodies of those who are not US citizens, or the bodies of those who are differently-abled.

Here’s the best part. I will still love you through it. That’s where so much of that energy is going to go. Not in simply making it hard to oppress others, but in loving the crap out of those of you who would try. Because that will be the hardest thing I do my entire life. I can feel it. Because my God tells me that I should love my neighbor as myself.

I will render unto Cesar what is his. And I will render unto God what belongs to God. Take my taxes, but don’t you touch my body or my right to love my wife, or my right to be a parent, or my right to buy a cake. Because those do not belong to Cesar.

This is a taco truck rally and all you have is cold slaw.

So there.