Juniper Silva

A consistent thing that would happen in my life, especially in elementary and middle school, was people saying my sister Emra looked like the female version of me, or vice versa. Emra and I were only two years apart, and we had a lot of similarities and differences. I kind of hate her for her behavior, both towards me and in general. Our relationship grew from being like 'frenemies' to essentially antagonistic roommates.

Those comments from others always stuck with me, as we were constantly compared. I was seen as the competent one, though. People kept seeing me in a good light and her in a bad light as a reflection of our outward behavior. I don’t want to badmouth her, but I don’t see her as a good person. She has a lot of internal work to do to heal and grow. Still, those comments floated in the back of my mind. I overthought it, but it also stuck with me more as I aged. I always wanted to be seen as better than my siblings. It was not because I saw most of them as competition, but as a standard below the bar I aspired to. I failed a lot, but I got better.

There was something deeply dissatisfying about being seen as the 'male version' of her, though back then I didn't think about why I had those thoughts. I only really started meta-cognitively reflecting on my own thinking around mid-high school. I did a lot of internal work, what felt like a purification of toxic behaviors that online content creators pointed out and that I noticed in myself. Yet I kept coming back to those thoughts about being better: Is this really what I was being compared to? I would definitely be a better girl than her.

Looking back, my PE teachers even noticed the competitive tone between us and used it to motivate us. There were cracks long before the egg shell fully cracked. Some were fine, others were more obvious to anyone who knew what to look for. Part of me resents her for living an experience that felt stolen from me. I know that isn’t entirely fair, that’s just frustration and pain talking. It’s rooted in dysphoria, but also in my intolerance of her. She didn’t manage her bipolar behavior well, which was just fuel thrown on the fire. I felt like she was embodying the negative traits of both our parents, and I tried to reject that energy, even to the point of adding to the screaming matches.

And I have heard every version of the same response. You have the right, but. The issues are real, but. People do care, but. You did it the wrong way. The suboptimal way. The way that makes people tune out. The way that adds to division. The way that is shock value instead of real message.

Every time, the but is the same thing dressed in different clothes. It is discomfort looking for a reason to be my problem instead of theirs.

Here is what I actually said tho.The outrage is the lesson. Not the flag. The outrage. The fact that a burned symbol generates more emotional investment than the burned lives that symbol is supposed to represent. The fact that people will perform elaborate intellectual gymnastics to avoid owning that. The fact that the same people who say they care about veterans, about poverty, about government accountability, will spend their energy correcting my method instead of sitting with what my method revealed about their priorities.

That is the misplaced anger. That is the misplaced priority. A comfort object mattering more than the material conditions of the people it claims to stand for. And when confronted with that, the response is not self-examination. It is telling me I should have been more palatable so they would not have to feel this.

I am not going to modulate my expression so you can avoid sitting with your own reaction. There is no comfortable way to make people uncomfortable.

That is the point.

I am tired of wearing the mask that says be quiet. Tired of watching neighbors stolen by ICE, shot in the street by state thugs taking orders from a predator in the highest office. Tired of the prison industrial complex swallowing generations of Black and Brown bodies for profit while politicians sell tough on crime theater. Tired of watching friends drown in a generational mental health crisis while their rights get stripped away one bill at a time.

I am tired of the economic collapse the news keeps denying. People cannot make families. Cannot afford rent. Cannot afford to get sick. Everything is cheap and expensive at the same time. Homes are unaffordable; elders die in retirement homes their families bleed to pay for, if they are lucky. I knew too many who died in squalor.

Our kids cannot read, cannot do math, but teachers are supposed to perform miracles while getting harassed by parents who have been told their discomfort is someone else's fault.

And meanwhile, working class brothers, sisters, sons and daughters get shipped off to die or be broken in endless foreign wars. Children die there from violence and here from resources that never arrive. And I’m constantly seeing videos of vets talking about the horror and how they fought for something greater. Was this it?

I’m tired of wearing a mask and being told what I do to what is in appropriate. This is weaponized etiquette and people do it people they only truly care about their own self image. They are fine smothering you as you choke.

The US government protects and facilitates rights, that is the point, and it’s a low bar morally speaking. But at the time of the founding of the nation is was special. So no, I was not giving rights by a government and it even says it in the governments own words.

I am tired of wearing the mask that says be quiet. Tired of watching neighbors stolen by ICE, shot in the street by state thugs taking orders from a predator in the highest office. Tired of the prison industrial complex swallowing generations of Black and Brown bodies for profit while politicians sell tough on crime theater. Tired of watching friends drown in a generational mental health crisis while their rights get stripped away one bill at a time.

I am tired of the economic collapse the news keeps denying. People cannot make families. Cannot afford rent. Cannot afford to get sick. Everything is cheap and expensive at the same time. Homes are unaffordable; elders die in retirement homes their families bleed to pay for, if they are lucky. I knew too many who died in squalor.

Our kids cannot read, cannot do math, but teachers are supposed to perform miracles while getting harassed by parents who have been told their discomfort is someone else's fault.

And meanwhile, working class brothers, sisters, sons and daughters get shipped off to die or be broken in endless foreign wars. Children die there from violence and here from resources that never arrive. And I’m constantly seeing videos of vets talking about the horror and how they fought for something greater. Was this it?

I’m tired of wearing a mask and being told what I do to what is in appropriate. This is weaponized etiquette and people do it people they only truly care about their own self image. They are fine smothering you as you choke.