I want to march because I believe in our great nation, and its historic right and obligation to protest unfair treatment and unjust rule. I want to march because I want, for once in my life, to stand for what I do believe in so strongly and stand against what in my opinion has gone so horribly wrong not just for the USA, but for the world of which it is an integral part. I want to march because I’m a person of color, disabled, and part of the LGBTQIA community, and possessed of a cis-female body, though I identify as nonbinary. I want to march because these are more than enough reasons to be dismayed at the views and nominees of our soon-to-be commander-in-chief, but even more dismayed that half the country turned out on November 8th 2016 in his name . . . that on that day my country, as it has done historically, voted in large numbers against everything that I am. I want to march because I learned that I am and may for the rest of my lifetime be an outsider to at least half of this nation I love; but be that as it may, I won’t take that lying down.

I want to march because no matter how this nation has hurt me and washed its hands of me–no matter that it has declared me anathema and useless and a drain on its resources–I still love this land of ours, and the people of good heart who inhabit it. I want to march because the incoming president and those who support a hateful, harmful regime can have my country when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Rachel E. Bailey has been published in Words 57, The Finger, The Stonesthrow Review, on Yahoo!Voices, in Amative Magazine, Writing.com 2014 Anthology, and My Favorite Apocalypse. She’s had short plays—The Big Opening and Messenger—performed for stage and screen. Her novels, Dyre: By Moon’s Light and Dyre: A Knight of Spirit and Shadows (and In Shining Armor, under the pseudonym E. L. Phillips) were published in 2016. She’s currently working on a novel about (mostly) LGBTQIA superheroes and the (mostly) LGBTQIA supervillains who loathe them, set in a fictional, futuristic city. She can be reached at: http://rachelebailey.wixsite.com/theworks/contact-c17aj