Time’s Up for Me, Too

Last year, when I most needed my voice, a blood blister grew in the back of my throat, making it harder to speak. New bones grew in the floor of my mouth, crowding my palate, further exacerbating the issue. I often ran my tongue over them to keep from biting.

Last year I went on dates with people who said “You’re hot,” like it was some sort of flattering problem or puzzle; they were trying to figure out how to separate my attractiveness from my disabled body.

Sometimes on these dates I ran my tongue over my new bones, usually when dates got lazy enough to ask me to solve their sex puzzle for them. They’d lean in conspiratorially, eyes glinting, and coyly ask, “So, how does that even work?”

Recently I’ve been thinking about The Golden Globes and Time’s Up, and how powerful it was to see the way women can come together and flood a red carpet black. How it recalled the National Mall in pink; how in the sea of both I could not see myself easily.

Whenever something terrible happens to a disabled