It sounds a little mundane, but I want to try to turn a few moments at the barber into something significant. I cut my hair short, which was a complete shock to my mom. Rooted in tradition, I realized that she feared me. She feared that I looked like a boy, that I looked "queer." Something irrevocably changed, and it goes beyond hair. This piece will describe that moment before the snips, and what they mean for my relationship with my mom.

I held his ballot tightly. It was just us outside, but I gripped it so that no one could take it away.
The ballot was thumping in my hand, the heartbeat of democracy. It echoed through both of us, beating a sacred drum.

I experienced some sort of moral edification last summer. Sheltered by suburbia, I watched the world around me burn. Spending the days secluded in my room and surrounded by my own thoughts, I never stepped out into hell. I had the privilege of developing beliefs and not being forced to experience the struggles at the root of them.