We’d sit on the floor at Twice Sold Tales, flipping through Kafka, laughing at Ayn Rand like it was an inside joke that made the world a little more bearable. We didn’t have all the answers, but we knew cruelty when we saw it—and we believed in something kinder, messier, more just.
She made activism feel like oxygen.
We passed joints and talked about systems and softness, about how justice lives in the body, not just the brain.
It was her who got me to my first protest.
Not by preaching—just by being brave enough to go, and believing I could be too.
Lately, I’ve been scared.
With the threats, it’s hard not to feel the weight of what showing up might cost.
But then I remember her.
And it’s her memory that bids me forward.
During the No Kings protests, it was her voice in my head.
Calling out power.
Calling me in.
Reminding me that rage can be sacred, and hope is not a feeling—it’s something you do.
This month marks seventeen years without her.
Seventeen Junes.
And still, she’s in every chant.
And every breath I take before I step into the street again.
No kings.
No forgetting.
Only forward.
Chestnut Cowboy 