A million leaves scattered the ground in red on Tuesday, November 5th. Falling pieces that had failed to be picked up. The cracks in the nutmeg-colored trees, far too wide. My sleep-stupor weakened my feet’s ability to pound the nutty-earth-bed floor. It was the overwhelming swamp that slowed me down, not the anxiety that felt like a shot of caffeine or the type of lethargy that comes from not eating enough. Still I managed to reach the bus on time. However, my relief from sitting in the 7:30am bus was undercut when I noticed how badly I smelled. I had run out of time to clean my body in that dreaded bathroom before heading to my morning daily French class.

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I had spent many moments in the months leading up to the election on the bathroom floor, bodily fluids sticking to the rim of the toilet, various hairstyles matted in sweat to my forehead. It was there while curled up on the ground after one too many dumb fights over the election and one in particular that shook me to my core, that I decided I was too mentally ill to be political. 

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That last terrible fight back in August, with someone who I had thought was a close friend, was about me not being radical enough because I thought people should vote Kamala Harris, to avoid Trump and because she was seeking to negotiate a ceasefire, albeit while funding the war. It was ugly timing. So ugly that the book I took an entire semester away from my home college for, in which I was writing about a main character starting a violent revolutionary group, had to be paused. How do you explain to your friends and family that the opportunity you had to write your first novel had been partially ruined by your decision to confront your past trauma through it? In my case, I didn’t. Confrontation is my weakness. So I stopped trying. That summer, I paused the book and stopped my political podcast, unable to talk about any of it without lying. 

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It was after this argument, that I had begun to realize that if I really went down this path of international relations, of having NGOs pay the plane tickets that I could not afford for my activism, I would have to be a pacifist to some degree, willing to compromise for a slightly better future, and to negotiate with dictators and the greedy because I do not feel comfortable enough to be an anarchist in real life. Only ever pulling the trigger in the fictional world. How Nelson Mandela or Athol Fugard of me. 

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When I told my parents back home in South Africa about that fight, however, my immigrant father and my mother who lives in an area she would not have even been allowed in under apartheid, were less understanding of my perspective. My South African mother wants me to maintain my newly found American network without corrupting it with politics. My Eswatini father wants my South African ass to move to a more economically stable country than he was able to. They told me to not interfere in a country that is not my own, that I must make a life here for myself and a pathway for my relatives, but I must not care if that life falls apart. 

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I found that the only way to not care was to force my body into a state where it could not physically demonstrate the care that would otherwise flow through it. I used to write and read and put beautiful, radical theories into practice. But I began to ignore my poetry and Audre Lorde the way that I ignore God, pain and my DBT skills workbook. That decision was in August. Then there was September. October. November 5th. 

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I remember the moment that I knew. I was at my friend’s place. The hopeful political messaging on the artworks on her bedroom walls contrasted with the sea of red states and the blaring sound of the monotonous way-too-moderate news anchor from my ipad. Takeout packets at 2am. The iPad is closed. ‘I bet on losing dogs’ plays in the background of my impromptu stay-over and swallowing numbness. 

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Midday on Wednesday November 6th, when I finally returned to my dwelling place, I noticed that the leaves had been raked. Had I imagined it, in my hysteria? The backyard looked like it was balding, with the near-white grass underneath. A green leaf landed in my hair. No, it happened. Trump, a convicted felon and alleged wannabe-dictator who was found liable for sexual assault, had won the 2024 USA elections. Unfortunately my memory of what I had witnessed was real. I went up the stairs. I took a shower. Recalled in shame how my fellow classmates were forced to sit next to me at 8:30 in the morning. It was shitty of me to smell like shit on such a shitty day. 

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Soon I was back in the bathroom, crying on the toilet seat, before climbing into the unwashed post-Halloween tub. My shivering and wailing were out of sync with the sad love songs, my dry heaving unable to handle music that is sadder than love. 

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My parents used to show their love by hitting me when I had done something wrong. I remember when my mom used to force me to hug her goodnight after beating me. Like a sort of reconciliation. My palms pressed gently into her backside while I pretended to respect what I felt she had done to mine. She had her reasons. A million reasons and one. My palms pressed the broken keyboard of my touchscreen phone. The pads of my fingers were itching to reply to everyone who voted green who was offering a hug. I don’t have to lie this time about forgiving them because I understand that they love community and fight for marginalized people just like I do. They just chose to show this love in a way that hurts, in a way that I disagree was the best way. Still, I cannot accept their hugs; I will not pretend my reason is not enough. By the time I made it to my last class of the day on Wednesday, post-election day, skipping only one of my classes to take the much needed soapy water down past my glittery vaccine bandage, I was fuming. I had made the mistake of going onto Instagram during my wait for the bus. I wanted to slap a bitch so hard, but I would never be able to do it. I’m not violent towards others, only myself. 

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I’m jealous of everyone who sleeps peacefully at night. I’m partially pissed off at Jill Stein voters because they get to feel morally right even if the most vulnerable lose. They act like this country is a democracy, and it is not, and I am in awe and fury because of it. I’m pissed off at US foreign policy, at Kamala for pandering to conservatives. I hate the young men that listened to Andrew Tate podcasts, I hate Christian Zionism and the fact that because of it, colonialism and violence persist and I don’t know how to take care of myself spiritually. I hate sexist motherfuckers. I hate pro-lifers, especially the hypocritical ones. I hate the stupid conversation I was forced into on the bus ride that morning. I’m sick of it all. I miss my home in South Africa and complaining about a failing economy and power outages, instead of immoral government policies and a broken democratic system. 

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All those times I spent on the bathroom floor, I tried to remind myself that my parents are breaking their back for me to fulfill their American dream, not accrue American medical bills and letter grade Bs. Is that what it means to be an American—to ignore what’s happening at the chance of a little more money? 

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Despite everything I went to my last class that day. On the way there, I practiced my French for the Friday test. 

Il ya mauvais means “the sky is grey” but directly translated it means, “here is evil”. Or at least that is what I understood through the comprehensible input component of my French class. During my last class of the day, an English creative writing class, we spent time articulating trauma in a way that tears could not allow me to access before. That class was cut short. Discussions were forced to peter out as we went in different directions. It was as I walked to the bus stop, that I noticed the change in the sky. 

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I watched as evil descended in the aftermath of the election. The clouds were heavy with the weight of it. And it felt honest. On the way back, I thought about how I would need to renew my visa to finish studying under a Trump presidency. How I wish I wasn’t so emotional for someone who couldn’t even vote.

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When I reached my housing on campus, I noticed that the leaves had begun to fall again. They didn’t stop falling on Friday, November 8, as I wrote the French test that I prayed to pass. Wilted unraked leaves made my party shoes slippery that night on my way to a college party. It was seventy plus degrees in November in Massachusetts. The whole week had been too hot in the way that only climate change could explain. I danced mindlessly to “F Trump”, ignoring the pain in my back and neck. I was about to leave the party when I noticed a lost phone in the leaves outside the house. 

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And then suddenly there they were: my former friend who I’d fought with so terribly back in August. They were looking for their phone. I picked up the phone on the ground, walked over and handed it to them, and they suddenly pulled me in close and hugged and thanked me. Then they apologized for our fight. I tried not to cry as my ex-housemate and ex-friend said everything I had been yearning to hear but had been too afraid to confront them about. Our braids and our embrace were the only things shielding us from the chilly night. As we parted ways, I promised myself to start fighting again, for my rights, for community, for life itself. I placed my hands in the pockets of my skirt to keep my fingers warm on the way to the bus stop. My thumb ran over the contact number my campus therapist had given me. When I got home, I ran to my room, leaves be damned, and, after months of self-numbing, I began to write again.