Today, I am a shell. My soul and insides have been scooped out and my body is like a hollowed out tree. I feel ghost-like and delirious in my pain.

In the early hours of the morning, as I struggled to get to sleep after consuming the reactions of those in the United States especially, to the result of this momentous presidential race, I felt like someone had kicked me in the face and pummelled my body until I no longer wanted to exist in this realm. I wanted Jesus to come and take me away from a world like this. A world that seems to have never valued the existence of people like me being around. Yes, God had put me here for a reason, and I would cling to that for the past few years on the daily, but I couldn’t take the assault of reality anymore. As a human, many of us would be apt to break down. 
After I finally got some sleep, albeit broken up stretches of it, late this morning I was curled up in a fetal position in my bed and didn’t want to get up.
The reality of yesterday’s events had hit me in the early hours of the morning and still stung all the way down to the core.

This is the beginning of the end.
This is the majority of American voters valuing the concept of currency and economy over the wellbeing and respect of each other, especially those who have it a lot tougher socially in this world.

I fret the beginning of next year when the fraying of everything held dear by the Americans and those overseas who stood against this tyranny, will begin.
Mass deportations, violence, further limits placed on the personal freedoms of women and those who can bear children, and further messaging of othering trans and LGBTQ+ individuals.
All for the hope that you who voted for this administration get to keep a bit more money in your bank accounts.
But really, you have been duped through false hope for a fascistic leader to take over and continue to exacerbate his immunity from facing the law while being convinced by other billionaires to continue giving their companies more tax cuts.

I, as a Ukrainian-born Australian-New Zealander on the other side of the world, am also starting the process of grief for the end of the nation that is Ukraine. It will be handed to Putin on a silver platter and there is nothing I can do about it.
And God knows what will come of the Palestinian nation and the state of the Middle East come the beginning of this new administration being in power.

We are heading into an even worse era of darkness than we did in 2016, and all I have to offer now is my voice, my anger, and my fighting spirit as an individual who has had to fight for their place at the table all my life. Fighting for what’s right has been my constant in life.
And even though the results of this election have knocked me down and caused my depression to flare up, I will pick myself up and hold on to my friends and family who love me and value me for exactly who I am. That is all I can do.

I am sending my love and support to those who will be preyed upon come the beginning of next year. If you have any opportunity to plan for an escape, whether near or far from where you currently live in the US, please do. Your physical and mental safety is all that matters now. And it is now, more than ever, an opportunity to form networks with others who are in the same boat as yourselves; to support each other and stay connected through the turmoil. These are the times when human decency and empathy are most in need. Find your tribe; form your chosen families. As a queer, liberal, feminist weirdo, I am still here, and I will keep fighting for you and your freedoms until my last breath.

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