Opinion: I didn't want to be right about my powerlessness. But we could see this coming in 2020.

A year and a half ago, I wrote a piece for the Register as Amy Coney Barrett was being confirmed onto the Supreme Court. I remember exactly how I felt — sitting at my campus job, filled with dread and regret for something I couldn’t control — powerless.

And I knew.

Today, I’m sitting in an apartment in a different city, using my lunch break to write this. But once again, I’m writing something crafted by fear and the knowledge that I cannot change what has happened or what will come.

I’m so tired. I wish I didn’t have to argue for my rights anymore, because I know that nothing I say will ever be heard by those who don’t want to listen.

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So I won’t waste these precious words with the usual arguments — that it’s my body, that your religion and mine declare separate things, that this decision shouldn’t be made by someone who doesn’t have a uterus, that forced pregnancy is a form of torture — anyone willing to give those arguments any time is already saying the same thing.

They tell me to call my representatives, write letters to my senators, vote. I’ve tried.

I’ll do it again. Another call, another letter, another vote. Even if I know it won’t change anyone’s mind. Even if I know that pleading will never work.

I don’t know why I’m writing this now. I can’t rally the masses to make meaningful change when the masses have no say in Supreme Court issues or even who is on it.

But I have nothing else. I’m a college student working a full-time summer internship. All I have is this. I am writing because it hurts too much to do anything else.

My words may reach only those who already support me, but perhaps that’s enough. Perhaps it’s enough that I cry out to you with all of my pain and my sadness and my fear, simply asking you to listen.

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If you don’t understand what I’m feeling but are willing to try, let me help you.

To lose one of your rights is to know what it really means to be afraid. To be failed by the systems you were taught to trust. It is to be told that your life means less than your counterparts, that you don’t deserve bodily autonomy. It is a terrifying reminder that “other” religions mean nothing to half of this country’s government. It is a promise that every step forward we’ve made in the past 50 years will be forced backward until the word “progress” is replaced with its antonym in the dictionary.

Listen to me weep through my words. Feel the tremble in my voice as if I speak them before you. And remember.

Remember tomorrow or next week when the headlines have changed. Remember even after your friends and family have stopped crying. Every time you pass one of those billboards, remember.

And during the midterm elections, remember my pain — because on that day, you will have power.

Please help the powerless.

Elise Kalin is a rising senior at Cornell College in Mount Vernon. She is majoring in French and English Creative Writing. 

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: I didn't want to be right about my powerlessness