“I miss the days when I associated Idaho with potatoes.” Poem, Iva Markicevic Daley.

Today, a state congressman proposes a bill that would require the bible to be read in schools. Last week, another congressman proposed the death penalty for anyone who gets an abortion. And what I once thought were butterflies in my stomach reveal themselves to be locusts.

I don’t live in Idaho, but I also don’t live in a state where I don’t have to worry if my daughter will be exposed to indoctrination before the ABC’s. And I struggle. I don’t want to move. But I also don’t want to die on a delivery room table

because my elected official would rather I know my place than choose my life.

I don’t want my daughter to carry a bulletproof backpack or learn pseudo-science. I don’t want her to grow up being told she is a vessel.

And while this politician in a distant state worries that there’s not enough oppression in his district, I worry

whether my daughter will know childhood at all.

-Iva Markicevic Daley