until we make it dangerous to be a nazi, they will make it dangerous not to be.

The sun rose today. The inauguration came and went. But something heavy has settled over us, a storm cloud low and suffocating, and no amount of screaming into the void will change the fact that a new era of sanctioned cruelty is upon us. Something has shifted.

And yet I refuse to be stomped down. I refuse to let my light dim just because darkness is winning. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel the weight of it, doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the deep, aching grief. I see the exhaustion, the terror, the people wondering how they will survive another four years under a system designed to grind them into dust. I know that not everyone has the privilege of rising above it, of finding small joys in the wreckage. Some are just trying to make it through the day. Some are wondering if they even want to. And I get that. I hold space for that.

I will never tell anyone to “just stay positive” when their rights are being stripped away, when their futures are being erased by ghouls in suits who see human suffering as a necessary byproduct of maintaining power, who sieg heil like it is nothing. They can have the laws, the courts, the headlines drenched in despair—for now, and not without a fight. It will not last. It will not. But right now? They cannot have my joy, my love, my light. I will hold onto it with both hands and refuse to let go.

As if the universe thought we weren’t already grieving enough, we lost David Lynch. One of the last remaining weird, unflinching artists. A man who built entire realities out of dreams and nightmares, who understood that the most terrifying thing in the world is not the supernatural, but the unknowable. If I say “Lynchian” you know what I mean—that’s artistic legacy.

Lynch’s work was a compass for me. A guide on how to create without compromise, how to embrace the strange and the beautiful in equal measure. He stood against the tide and said, “No, I will not be shaped by this world. I will shape it myself.” Let the rest of us be the ones who wake up every day and keep making things, keep resisting, keep holding onto whatever scraps of hope they can find.

In a sudden shift of a thought: bisexuality is a funny thing where you find yourself often too queer for the straights, too straight for the queers, always navigating a space where people want you to pick a side. But if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that queerness is not about sides. It’s about finding the people who make you feel like you don’t have to explain yourself, who see you for who you are without needing a thesis statement.

Queer spaces have been lifelines for me. Not just in the obvious ways of safety, acceptance, and the relief of existing without defense; but in the quiet, necessary ways that make life feel worth living. The shared language of survival. The humor that comes from knowing we have always had to laugh through the pain. The way queer friends hold you a little tighter, love you a little louder, because we know. We know.

And right now, as the world feels like it’s twisting in on itself, I am holding my queer friends even closer. We are making spaces for each other in whatever ways we can. We are keeping each other safe, keeping each other whole. We are loving each other in a world that tells us not to.

I will not pretend I am not afraid. I will not pretend I do not feel the weight of what is happening, of what could happen. But I will also not let that fear consume me. I have spent too long fighting to be who I am to let anyone take that from me now.

I was raised on Jesus and biscuits. On “love thy neighbor” and “treat people how you want to be treated.” And yet, somehow, I ended up in a country where the loudest voices screaming about Jesus are the ones cheering for cruelty. Where common sense is dismissed as radicalism, and kindness is treated like weakness.

I reject it. I reject the twisting of faith into something unrecognizable. I reject the notion that we should just “accept” the way things are. I reject despair, even when it’s the easiest thing to reach for.

I don’t have answers. I don’t know what comes next. But I do know this: I will keep creating. I will keep loving. I will keep fighting in the ways I know how.

I will not let the bastards steal my light.