IT DOESN'T AFFECT ME

I watch the world burn from a safe distance, the fire behind glass thick enough to muffle screams, but thin enough to let the light in. There are protests. Crackdowns. Children locked away. Judges rule, laws pass, names vanish from records. But me, I wake up, scroll through it, blink twice, and keep scrolling. It doesn't affect me. There are clinics closing, teens trembling in bedrooms where mirrors reflect the wrong name. Their appointments cancelled, their bodies halted, their futures devoured. A mother cries in a hospital parking lot. A father burns through savings for out-of-state treatment. The headlines call it “mutilation,” as if the violence isn't in the denial. But me, I breathe fine. My ID matches my face. I don't know what it means to be stripped from systems in the name of “common sense.” I can laugh at jokes, even the ones that punch down. I can go to school, to work, to the doctor, and never be questioned about what I am. It doesn’t affect me. I see the photos, raids in cities I’ve never visited, hands raised, brown faces blurred in fear, the silence of those who vanish before their families even know. But I sleep in my own bed. I don’t flinch at the sirens. I don’t carry papers proving my right to exist. It doesn’t affect me. There are books being banned, flags torn down, songs unsung. There are names spoken only in whispers, not for shame, but for survival. Drag queens labeled predators, educators fired for saying the word “trans.” And still, I sit in my room, untouched. Annoyed at slow Wi-Fi. Because it doesn’t affect me. I sip coffee while someone in Tacoma is force-fed cold beans in a detention center for being born wrong. I say nothing. I do nothing. The walls of safety are soundproof. The news is just background noise. And I tell myself: I’m tired. I’m busy. What can I even do? They’ll be okay. Someone else will fight. Someone louder. Someone braver. It doesn’t affect me. Until one day, maybe, it will. But even then, I’ll probably say the same thing.