Daughter, I wonder on days like this about the

world that I will leave you, about the things you

will be forced to see as normal, because it will

be all you’ve ever known. I wonder some days

if the world is still capable of change,

if the concept of evolution can stop

being a debate topic, and start applying to

social progress. If the survival

of the fittest didn’t have to be those

individuals who can climb the ladder highest,

but can become the ideas that

fit the nation we actually have before us

instead of the one we pretend

we can ignore. I am left to wonder if this

country is still capable of self-awareness,

of noticing the color of its skin isn’t white

anymore. I pray there will come a day

when a black mother, a Muslim mother,

and a white mother can lay down

with the same peace that their children

will come home tonight,

instead of laying with one eye open, watching

the phone, watching the news.

How long do we hold our breath waiting for one week

to go by without another addition to the body count that

only Facebook is willing to tally? How long do we wait idly

as outrage becomes a passive feeling, one more

news report to comment on? How many more

need to die before we decide to make their deaths

no longer in vain? I pray for you to live in a day in age

where the most meaningful commentary on the criminal

justice system isn’t Zootopia, but is instead academic and

social conversation that you get to take part in.

I wonder if anger will

still pour out of pulpits and politics

to poison the rivers of information,

if there will come a day that fear

does not continuously seep into the roots

of our rhetoric. I hope that “those people”

ceases to be a meaningful denomination, and that

“We the people,” can stand to see all men

created equal, all women too. I wonder

if someday I can make equal salary to my male

counterparts, if someday I can yell loud enough

to be heard and be taken seriously so you don’t have

to suffer the indignity of hearing “it’s because you’re a woman,”

But more importantly, I wonder, with my stomach in my

throat, what world it will be when you, my daughter,

dress your daughter for school and say “Be safe,”

on the first day of second grade. I wonder if I will

be able to live with myself if there still has to be

fear in your eyes, teaching my teenage

granddaughter that to walk the street

is to be at risk for being raped. Tell me

please, when I will be able to hold my head up

and be seen as equal, because today a man

runs for president who believes my body

matters more than my mind. I pray that

our daughters are no longer taught that to be beautiful,

a strained forced falsified skin deep concept

is worth burning their self-worth

on the alter of industry. Now tell me please

that there will be a day that these things

are unthinkable and tell me please that this day

is when my daughter learns to vote,

not the reason that she has to.