Things Donald Trump Cannot Take Away:
1. your voice
i know, i know that there are days when you feel your voice is a whisper on the wind, drowned out by the hurricane of those louder than you. make your voice stronger. make it so strong it leaves craters in the skin of those scared of what you are capable of. make your voice gentle when it needs to be; capable of only moving a blade of grass, softly swaying the weeds. sometimes being gentle is the same as being strong. donald trump is not strong enough to break your vocal chords, to put a cork over all the words that can spill like wine from between your lips.
2. your hope
obama left you a bank account full of hope when he closed the doors to the oval office. some days you don't know what to do with it, and most days you can feel it falling like sand from the valleys between your fingers. catch any grain of hope you can find and carry it always. slip it under your fingernail so you'll never lose it. the amount of hope americans carry inside of them is too heavy for donald trump to hold in his small hands. on the days where you feel as hopeless as a ship lost at sea, someone down your street will have enough hope for the both of you.
3. your identity
donald trump can mock and poke fun all he wants, but words can't erase the artwork that is you. he cannot paint over the color of your skin with a paintbrush dipped in hate. he cannot strip away your culture like it is a decoration from a holiday long dead. he cannot not change who you love, who you want to kiss and hold and spend sleepless nights with. he cannot change the fact that you might not want that at all. he cannot change your gender, man, woman, or something fluid and free in between. you are beautiful and important and valid the way you are, and donald trump can never take that away from you.
4. love
there will always be mothers hugging their children before their first day of school. there will always be eager spouses waiting at the end of carpeted church aisles, watching someone they cannot wait to spend the rest of their days and nights and sunday afternoons with walk towards them. there will always be siblings lightly teasing each other on car rides to the grocery store, jokes coated in quiet love. there will always be best friends hugging each other after long days, finding comfort and solace in each other's presence. donald trump's campaign has become a 101 in how to hate, but we will make his presidency a talent show demonstrating how much the human race can love.
5. kindness
if you filled 20 city blocks with all the good people in the world, you would still not have enough room. the kindness living inside of everyone on this planet is larger than donald trump's ego. the kindness is easy to find, if you know where to look. you will find it in the tiny conversations about the weather with strangers in supermarket check-out lines. you will find it in the girl complimenting your lipstick in the dingy school restrooms. you will find it in the old man who lets you pet his dog because it looks like the one you had when you were five. you will find kindness and goodness in your own hands, holding doors open and lifting others up. there is so much good it hurts. there is so much good that one man cannot cancel it out entirely.
