On Friday morning in the rain in a small town on the way to nowhere I cast my vote for President of the United States of America, the country that I was born in and continue to choose to live in.

I cast my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I wept into my ballot. I wasn’t sure why. Was the part of me that got caught by the real tree hat also caught by voting for a woman, voting for a Black woman, voting for someone who could very well beat Trump tomorrow? Was I crying for the thousands of innocent Palestinian lives lost at the hand of the woman I voted for? Was I crying because I was hours away from bleeding? Was I crying because women before me didn’t have the right to vote? Was I crying because it felt like a small act of saying yes to my own queer liberated body and no to fascism?

Along my road is only Trump signs, no Harris signs. Winding along for miles in the rural North I face dozens of these signs every day. Don and Terry put theres out as I imagined they might. Immigration Terry muttered. They have more rights than we do. I look puzzled I’m not sure I’m with you I reply, but we agree that we don’t like our choices. I ordered the sign, I ordered the tote bag, and yes dear reader, I ordered the hat. Embarrassed at my decision they sit in a pile never used and I never put the sign out. It felt like an endorsement I never felt clear on and a conversation I didn’t want to have with Greg the chimney sweep.