The morning is gray,
muted by scrolling headlines
and the soft hum of the microwave;
older than either of them wish to admit.
Liz sits at the table,
coffee cooling in her hands,
phone screen lit with
another headline she doesn't want to believe in.
“They’ve already made up their mind,” she says,
without looking up.
“My vote wouldn’t count.”
I watch my mother
through the reflection of the microwave door.
Seventeen years old,
I march, I speak, I organize,
but when election day comes,
all I can do is watch,
and wait for the moment my voice will finally count.
“Mom, you taught me to speak up.”
I tap the table, gently.
“I’d give everything to be able to right now,
And you won’t?”
Liz doesn’t answer.
The silence stretches–
not anger, not indifference,
just a tired kind of doubt.
That night, Liz pulls out the mail-in ballot
she wasn’t going to open.
Fills the circles slowly,
as if each one might break or build something.
She folds it,
seals it,
and leaves it by the door.
In November,
we walked to the polling station together.
Not to fix everything,
but to say:
we are still here.
We still believe.
This is how those beliefs endure.