I watched the inauguration of Joe Biden when I was 13. At the time, I didn’t know what that meant for the nation. I knew nothing of his policies or his character. I just knew that he wasn’t Donald Trump, and that was enough for me.  The reason I was so engaged in the 2021 inauguration was because of the poet who spoke of unity and togetherness in her poem “The Hill We Climb.” She spoke of a hopeful future that Americans could have if they band together to climb the hill to p

I spent most of my formative years inside a dance studio, a dusty warehouse with its metal ballet bars, its body-warping mirrors, its worn flooring, and its echoing ceiling. From ages 3-14, it was my full time job. The routine always went like this: I’d go to school, make my way home, rush into my baby pink tights and leotard as my mom stabbed me in my parietal lobe with bobby pins to get my hair in a bun. The car ride to dance was intense, my mom wasn’t great at time managem

When I attended my great-grandmother’s funeral, I felt guilty for how much I cried. It’s hard to be sad when you aren’t supposed to be. I...