Oh, but I’m real.
I currently have my period.
Is that real enough for you?
I’ve given birth to children. Two of them came straight out of my vagina. I needed an episiotomy. Let my husband tell you all about that. He almost fainted.
Is that real enough for you?
You can meet my children. They had to have come from *somewhere.* That’s the most miraculous thing about bringing a child into the world. They were never here and then suddenly they are. I brought a human being into the world, so new and original. No other human being will ever be the ones I created.
Is that real enough for you?
I write and read and garden and crochet. I can show you stories and essays and poems that are only there to show you because I created them. I can take you out to my garden and you can eat things I’ve grown. You can come into my house to read one of the books I enjoy. I’ll even wrap a blanket around you that I made.
Is that real enough for you?
I have friends, too. I know they’re real because I’ve been to their homes and met their families, and they’ve been to mine. We go to concerts and movies and parties together. We’ve consumed food together. I’ve listened to them cry and held their hands when needed. They’re so real I’d give a kidney to any one of them if needed.
Is that real enough for you?
If you think that negative polls are “fake news,” does that mean you think I don’t exist? That we don’t exist?
I did not vote for you. I do not approve of you. I do not approve of anything you have done so far in office.
My friends and I have organized. We’ve made phone calls and written letters and marched and demonstrated and scheduled speakers to come teach us and guide us and help us be better people, even stronger people, in the wake of the harmful things you seem so bent on doing to our country.
Calling me “fake news” will not make me go away.
Calling my friends “fake news” will not make us disappear.
We’re going to get louder and your polls are going to get even more negative.
We will not be dismissed as “fake news” or anything else you come up with to try to make us less real to you.
We are all, each one of us, very, very real.
We are your negative polls.
And no matter what petulant tweets you send out about us . . . we’re not going anywhere.
allison writes 
