I've been staring at my screen for the past three hours trying to think about my article content. I have so many things to talk about, so many urgent things I want to discuss, and yet I'm finding it hard to sort it all out. To be perfectly honest I am heartbroken. I think about the world and I think about all of the awful things that have been happening and my heart can hardly take it. I lie awake at three in the morning short of breath, trying to untangle the mess of my mind. My anxiety causes me to go over these events again and again as if my brain is trying to remind my laughter-and-moonlight-obsessed self the world can be dark and cruel.

I think about the Stanford Rape case. I read the words the victim wrote to her attacker and they run through my mind constantly. "I was too drunk to speak English, too drunk to consent way before I was on the ground. I should have never been touched in the first place." "It is enough to be suffering. It is another thing to have someone ruthlessly working to diminish the gravity of validity of this suffering." "Assault is not an accident. Somehow, you still don’t get it." I am an indistinguishable mix of pride and rage. I am proud of the victim who stood up for herself, who became a hero to thousands of women who have been assaulted, and who realized the flaws that exist in our society. I am enraged by the sentence given, by the defense given, "Your attorney has repeatedly pointed out, well we don’t know exactly when she became unconscious." I am disgusted by how Brock Allen Turner failed to understand that what he did was wrong and inexcusable. I let this anger fuel me because things need to change.

I think about the Orlando Massacre. I think about the names of the people who have passed. Edward Sotomayer. K.J. Morris. Amanda Alvear. Cory James Connell. Deonka Deidra Drayton. There are too many names. I say them out loud and let myself hear them. I write them down. I let these names exist in this world and force myself to remember these names belong to people. Luis S. Vielma. Mercedes Marisol Flores. Javier Jorges-Reyes. I force myself to remember they are gone. It is not easy. I make myself remember why they are gone because I know that it is vital. I force myself to say his name; Omar Mateen. It tastes like poison. I don't dwell, I can't dwell, but I remember. I ask my Goddess, how is it I live in a world where people are killed because of who they love? I think about my mothers when they were in love. My mothers who raised me to believe in love. I think about my older sister and her wife. I think about myself, me, who loves so fiercely and instantly, who has always said I would love who I loved no matter what because love is my life force. It breaks me to think that people are dying because they love. Alejandro Barrios Martinez. Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala. Tevin Eugene Crosby. Frank Hernandez Escalante. Akyra Monet Murray. Dead because they dared to love and love openly. And with that word I think of one of my heroes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, when he stood on stage, in the light of recognition and so clearly broken about what happened that very morning, and reminded us that love is love is love is love is love is love. This gives me hope.

I think about Ashley Doolittle who was killed by her ex-boyfriend because they broke up. I think about other girls whose stories sound so similar, so common, it becomes like a children's nursery rhyme, something so ingrained in my mind. I think about feminism and it's need, my need, for something to change. I wonder about the people who, in the wake of these tragedies, still believe none of it matters. I cannot understand how they can hear our cries and tell us our problems don't exist.

I've been staring at my computer screen for the past three hours trying to make sense of this lingering sickness, a mixture of rage, guilt, empathy, and so much pain. I cannot help but wonder if I will die before people start to listen.