(excerpts from a private diary recovered on a cracked iPhone, case stickered with glitter stars and a faded tour laminate)
2 January 2026
I promised myself I’d start writing again.
Not “journalling”, because that sounds like oat milk and linen trousers. Just… writing things down. A place to put the noise.
I’m in a hotel room that smells like new carpet and expensive soap. Somewhere between “the Midwest” and “I can’t remember what state this is because I slept through the drive”. The team is asleep in the other rooms. My stylist left a garment bag on the chair like a person.
I’m supposed to be grateful. I am grateful. I’m also… floating. Like my body belongs to everyone else, and my voice is a thing people rent for two and a half minutes at a time.
Mum called. She said she watched my NYE performance twice and cried both times. I told her it was the wind machine, it makes everyone cry.
She laughed and then asked if I’d voted.
I said, “Mum. I sing.”
“I know,” she said. “But you live here.”
“I live on a tour bus,” I said.
That made her go quiet, like I’d said something sad by accident.
I’m not apolitical. I have feelings. I just don’t know what to do with them. Every time I post about anything, someone tells me I’m brave and someone else tells me I’m a stupid puppet and a third person says I should stick to lip gloss and leaving men.
I don’t want to be the girl who “stays out of politics” because that’s what people say right before they’re shocked the world is on fire.
But I also don’t want to be the girl who becomes a headline because I used the wrong word in the wrong paragraph on the wrong day.
Anyway.
This is my attempt at being real in a place nobody can quote.
If anyone ever reads this, hi. Please don’t.
18 March 2026
Rehearsals for the summer thing have started. The big summer thing.
They keep calling it “the Semiquin”. Like it’s a fun party theme. Like it’s a cocktail.
“Two hundred and fifty years,” my manager said, and he was beaming like he personally invented independence.
There are meetings where men in suits say “historic” fifteen times and never say “people”.
I’m supposed to sing at an official event in DC. Not the main fireworks one—something family-friendly with TV cameras and veterans and a giant stage and flags and a laser show that’s going to spell out USA in the sky like God’s password.
“Legacy moment,” everyone keeps saying. “Iconic.”
I asked if there would be protests.
My publicist smiled in a way that made her teeth look sharp. “There are always protests. It’s fine.”
Then she gave me a list of approved talking points that basically translated to:
I love everyone. I love America. Please buy my merch.
4 July 2026
Today was… a lot.
They drove us in through security like we were going to space. Metal fences, dogs, men with earpieces saying things into their wrists. My outfit was white and sparkling, because of course it was. I looked like a patriotic disco ball.
Backstage there were balloons and catered salads no-one ate. On a monitor I watched a drone shot of the crowd: families, sunburns, people waving flags like they were trying to fan the entire country cool.
Then, on the edge of the frame, something darker. A moving patch. Like a storm.
At first it looked like nothing. Just people gathering. Then the camera zoomed in and I saw signs. I couldn’t read most of them, but I saw one that said NO MORE KINGS and another with a woman’s face printed huge, her mouth taped over.
“Is that about…?” I started.
My manager shook his head hard, like I’d tried to bite him. “Not your lane,” he said. “Eyes on the stage.”
The protest grew while the speeches happened. It wasn’t just a couple of people. It was thousands. You could hear it, this low roar that didn’t match the script. A sound like an ocean deciding it didn’t like the shore.
My slot was after the Governor, after the general, after the kid who won the essay contest about freedom. I watched them all say the same words in different voices.
And then it was me.
The lights hit and the crowd became this bright blur. I walked out, smiled, did the little wave I practised since I was fifteen in my bedroom mirror, and started singing.
The first verse was fine. I could do it on autopilot. I could sing this song in my sleep.
Then, somewhere to my left, the chanting sharpened. It turned into actual words.
I caught fragments between the beat:
…our bodies…
…no rights…
…not safe…
I looked down the front row. There was a little girl on someone’s shoulders, wearing headphones too big for her head. She was grinning like she thought the chanting was part of the show.
Behind her, a woman’s eyes were wet. She wasn’t singing along. She was staring past me at something I couldn’t see.
Then a bottle flew.
Not at me. Across the fence line. It arced through the air like a terrible, lazy bird and hit the ground near the security line. Glass burst into sunlight.
That was the moment everything changed, because the people in black didn’t hesitate. They moved like a machine with one thought.
The chant became a scream.
Someone rushed the fence. Someone else rushed the someone. The sound of the crowd snapped.
In my ear, the director barked, “Keep going! Keep going!”
So I did. I kept singing while the world cracked open at the edges.
The cameras, of course, kept filming.
The song ended. There was applause in the “this is what we do at concerts” way, like muscle memory. The laser show started. The sky turned into a flag. The fireworks went off like it was all normal.
Backstage, my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t get my in-ear out.
My publicist was already on her phone. “We’re putting out a statement,” she said, voice sugary. “We condemn violence. We support peaceful expression. We’re grateful for the opportunity to celebrate—”
I interrupted. “People were getting hurt.”
“Yes,” she said, like I was a toddler pointing out the obvious. “That’s why we condemn violence.”
I pulled up the live stream on my phone. In the comments people were yelling at me.
Why didn’t I stop singing?
Why didn’t I say something?
Why did I even go there?
Why did I sing for them?
I sat down on the floor between garment bags and cried into my knees like I was back in school, in the bathroom, hiding from gossip.
For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be a symbol.
And I hated it.
6 July 2026
My name trended for two days. That feels normal now, which is insane.
But this was different. It wasn’t “cute dress” or “new album” or “she’s dating who???” It was war.
Half the internet decided I’d performed for fascists. The other half decided I was a patriot princess being bullied by ungrateful traitors. Both halves demanded I speak.
My team wrote me three versions of a statement.
Version A: “love and unity”
Version B: “I support democracy”
Version C: “I stand with women”
Version C had a big red RISKY label on it like it was raw chicken.
I chose C anyway.
I posted it at 11:13pm because I didn’t want to do it in daylight.
It was basically: I saw what happened. I’m scared. I believe people deserve rights and safety and a future. I don’t want violence. I want accountability.
I pressed send and then threw up.
By morning, the message had ten million likes.
And two million threats.
2 September 2026
This is the thing nobody tells you about being famous:
You can’t tell when the air changes until you try to breathe and there’s a hand on your throat.
The shows kept happening. The interviews kept happening. The brand deals kept emailing like the world wasn’t falling apart.
But the vibe—God, I hate that word—shifted.
People at airports started shouting “whore” like it was a hobby.
Someone mailed my record label a dead bird with a note that said SING FOR AMERICA OR SHUT UP.
Security got upgraded. It’s weird to have armed men whose only job is to follow you around while you drink iced coffee.
I kept thinking about that little girl on shoulders in July. Headphones too big. Smile like a sunrise. What does she grow up into?
What do I?
19 November 2027
I haven’t written in a while, which means I’m either happy or scared.
I’m scared.
There’s a new kind of news now: not “thing happened” but “thing might happen, prepare yourself.” Like the country is holding its breath and nobody’s sure how to exhale without breaking something.
The rumours say there’s going to be a big push for “national renewal”. They keep using that phrase. Renewal like a subscription. Renewal like your battery is dying so you replace it.
Mum called again.
She asked if I had cash at home.
I laughed at first, because who uses cash? Then I realised she wasn’t joking.
“Just… keep some,” she said. “And copies of your documents. Okay?”
I said okay.
After the call, I found my passport in a drawer and held it like it was a tiny brick of safety.
3 February 2028
Tonight was the night the lights went out, metaphorically and literally.
It started with alerts: something happened in DC. Something big. There were videos—smoke, sirens, people running.
Then the networks went… strange. Presenters with stiff faces repeating words like “uncertain” and “unconfirmed”. A crawl at the bottom of the screen saying STAY INDOORS like we were all naughty dogs.
My manager called, voice shaking. “Don’t post. Don’t go live. Don’t say anything.”
“People are dying,” I said.
“I know,” he whispered. “That’s why.”
There’s a certain kind of fear that comes from being told to shut up by someone who normally begs you to speak.
I turned on the TV anyway.
A man in uniform appeared behind a podium.
He said “temporary” a lot.
He said “for your safety”.
He said “suspension”.
He said “order”.
He didn’t say when it would end.
12 February 2028
The first thing they took wasn’t the right to vote.
It wasn’t even your phone.
It was your normal.
They told everyone to carry ID at all times. They put up checkpoints “in response to threats”. Streets got blocked. National Guard vehicles became just… scenery. Like buses.
Then the companies started acting strange. Posts got removed. Accounts got flagged. People I know in the industry had their pages disappear overnight, like someone erased them from the world.
I had a meeting with my label on Zoom and the legal guy said, very calmly, “We should be careful about the language in your upcoming lyrics.”
“Language,” I repeated. Like the word women was a bomb.
1 March 2028
The money thing happened today.
It didn’t feel dramatic. No soldiers smashed down my door. No one snatched my credit cards.
My assistant texted me: Hey, quick one, your card declined at Erewhon. Might be a bank glitch?
I laughed. “Of course it did,” I said aloud, alone in my kitchen. “Of course.”
Then I opened my banking app.
And it asked me to log in again, which it never does.
When I finally got in, my balances looked… wrong. Not empty, exactly. Just… inaccessible. Like the numbers were there but behind glass.
A pop-up message appeared:
ACCOUNT ACCESS UPDATED DUE TO NATIONAL FINANCIAL SECURITY MEASURES.
There was a “learn more” link that didn’t load.
I rang my business manager. Straight to voicemail.
I rang my mother. No answer.
I rang the bank. A recording told me they were experiencing “high call volumes due to the situation.”
The situation.
Later, my manager called back, and for the first time in his life he sounded small.
“They’ve… changed things,” he said.
“What things?”
He didn’t want to say it, like saying it would make it true.
“Women’s accounts,” he whispered. “They’re… transferring authority to heads of households.”
I stared at my phone.
“I’m the head of my household,” I said, and it came out like a joke.
“I know,” he said. “But… they don’t.”
Something inside me went cold.
It wasn’t just the money. It was the lesson.
Everything you earned can be rewritten.
Everything you are can be reassigned.
I opened my wardrobe and saw my tour costumes hanging like ghosts.
Sparkle, sequins, short skirts, bare shoulders, all the things people called “empowering” right up until they decided it was “sinful”.
I suddenly wanted to burn it all.
Instead I sat on the floor and held my knees and tried not to scream.
6 March 2028
My label sent me a “pause notice.”
My tour was cancelled “for safety”.
My brand deals disappeared like they’d never existed.
My social accounts became… quiet. My posts still showed to me, but the likes stopped. Comments slowed. My reach died in a way that felt artificial, like someone had turned down my volume.
My manager told me to stop leaving the house.
My security team said they could no longer carry firearms in certain zones without new licences.
“We can still protect you,” the lead guy said.
He didn’t look convinced.
I tried to buy groceries with cash. The cashier looked at me too long, then glanced at the man behind me in line, like she was checking if it was safe to be kind.
When I walked back to my car, someone hissed, “Jezebel,” under their breath.
I didn’t know what it meant then.
I looked it up later and wished I hadn’t.
21 April 2028
They came for the artists next.
Not with arrests. Not with headlines.
With rules.
A new “decency code” for broadcast.
A list of banned topics. Banned imagery. Banned “influences”.
A radio station accidentally played one of my older songs and then apologised for it on air like they’d run a slur.
I watched a news segment about “cultural repair” where a man smiled and said, “We’re simply restoring values.”
Restoring.
Like we were a broken chair.
Like my life was a mistake they could sand down.
That night I called my mother and she finally answered.
Her voice sounded like she’d aged ten years.
“Are you safe?” she asked.
“I’m scared,” I said, which was as close to truth as I could get.
“Listen,” she said. “We need to leave.”
“We can’t,” I said. “We’re—”
“I don’t care what we are,” she snapped, and it shocked me silent. My mother never snapped. “We are not staying. Do you understand?”
“How?” I whispered.
She took a breath.
“Canada,” she said. “I have a friend. There’s a way.”
2 May 2028
Planning an escape feels like being in a spy film, except there’s no cool music and you can’t trust anyone and your hands won’t stop sweating.
We couldn’t use my usual travel people. Too many names in too many systems. Too many eyes.
My mother’s friend knew someone who’d helped a family cross last month. “Not legal,” she said. “But safer than staying.”
I stared at my passport again, like it might grow wings.
“Won’t they stop us at the border?” I asked.
“They stop some people,” she said. “Not all.”
There was a pause, and then, gently:
“Your face helps. For now.”
I hated that. I hated that my fame—this thing that had always felt like a cage—might become a key.
Or a target.
We decided to go in the dark, not because it’s romantic, but because darkness makes you less visible.
My mother told me to pack light.
I packed like I was going to die.
I took:
-
a hoodie
-
jeans
-
trainers
-
my passport
-
my mum’s old gold necklace
-
a cheap burner phone
-
the little notebook I wrote songs in when I was sixteen
And then I stood in my closet, looking at the sparkly dresses, and I realised I didn’t want any of them.
They belonged to a world that didn’t exist anymore.
9 May 2028
We drove for hours. No music. No talking.
My mother held the wheel like it had offended her.
We avoided main roads. We avoided cities. We avoided anything that looked like authority.
Every time we passed a sign with a flag on it, my stomach clenched.
At one checkpoint, a man in uniform leaned in and looked at my face like he was deciding what I was worth.
I kept my eyes down, hair pulled forward, hoodie up.
My mother said, calm as a saint, “We’re visiting family.”
He looked at our documents for too long.
Then he handed them back and waved us through.
When we were out of sight, my mother exhaled so hard the car shook.
“Don’t cry,” I whispered.
“I’m not crying,” she said.
She was crying.
10 May 2028
The crossing wasn’t a border crossing.
It was woods.
It was mud and branches and cold air that tasted like wet metal.
It was following a stranger with a torch covered in red tape so the light wouldn’t carry far.
The stranger didn’t talk. They just moved.
My trainers sank into the earth. My legs burned. My breath came out loud and stupid.
At one point, we heard an engine and dropped down behind a fallen tree like we were in a war, which maybe we were.
I thought about July 2026 and the flags and the fireworks and me singing about love while people screamed.
I thought: I should have stopped.
And then I thought: Stopping wouldn’t have stopped this.
The stranger held up a hand.
We froze.
In the distance there was a line of lights, like a town trying to look friendly.
“Almost,” the stranger whispered for the first time.
My mother grabbed my hand. Her fingers were ice.
“Keep going,” she mouthed.
We kept going.
Then we crossed an invisible line and nothing changed except the stranger turned and said, softly, “You’re in Canada.”
I didn’t believe them.
But then I saw a small sign nailed to a post, half hidden by leaves, and it had a maple leaf on it.
And my knees gave out.
I sat in the mud and laughed, which turned into sobbing, which turned into laughter again.
My mother knelt beside me and pressed her forehead to mine.
“Baby,” she whispered, voice breaking. “Baby, we made it.”
For the first time in months, my lungs filled like they were allowed to.
12 May 2028
We’re in a small flat above a bakery. The air smells like bread and cinnamon, which feels like a miracle.
I keep waiting for someone to knock on the door and say this was all a mistake and we have to go back.
No one has knocked.
A woman from some organisation came today. She brought forms. Warm socks. A phone charger.
She spoke gently, like she knew my voice from the radio but didn’t want to make me a thing.
“Do you need medical care?” she asked my mother.
“Do you need legal help?” she asked me.
I almost laughed at that. Legal. Like the law still knows my name.
I said, “I don’t have any money.”
She nodded, not shocked, not judging. “We can help with that.”
Then she looked at me, really looked, and said quietly, “You’re safe here.”
Safe.
The word felt unreal in my mouth.
After she left, I sat by the window and watched people walk past like it was just another day. Someone carried a coffee. Someone carried flowers. A teenager laughed into their phone like laughing was normal.
I tried to imagine my old life—stages, lights, stadium screams—and it felt like remembering a dream you had when you were a child.
I opened my notes app and scrolled through my unfinished songs.
There was one line I’d written in July 2026, right after the protest. I’d forgotten it was there.
Freedom is a costume until someone tears it.
I don’t know if I’ll ever sing again.
Part of me wants to disappear forever, become nobody, walk around in a hoodie and buy bread and never be looked at like a symbol.
Part of me wants to scream so loud the whole world has to listen.
Maybe those two things can be the same.
Maybe the girl who only wanted to write love songs has to learn a new kind of music.
Tonight my mother is asleep on the sofa, exhausted in a way I’ve never seen. Her face in sleep is softer, like she’s put down a weight she’s been carrying since I was born.
I tucked a blanket over her like she used to do for me.
Outside, it’s snowing.
It’s May. It shouldn’t be snowing.
But it is.
The world is wrong in so many ways.
And still.
I am here.
I am breathing.
I am not owned.
I am not quiet.
Not forever.
13 May 2028
I walked to the bakery downstairs and bought two cinnamon buns with the last of the cash we had.
The man behind the counter smiled at me like I was just a girl buying breakfast.
I didn’t know I needed that more than anything.
When I got back upstairs, my mother was awake. She sat up, hair wild, and for a second she looked like herself again.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Freedom,” I said, and held up the bag.
She laughed, the real laugh, the one that used to fill our kitchen back home.
We ate warm bread with sugar on our fingers, and for a moment the world didn’t feel like an ending.
It felt like a beginning.
I don’t know what happens next.
But I know this:
If they ever build their cages all the way to here,
I will sing.
And I will not keep going when the screaming starts.
14 May 2028
There’s a radio in the kitchen.
It’s old. The kind with a dial you turn and you can hear the station arrive through static, like it’s travelling to you across water.
I didn’t notice it yesterday. I didn’t want to notice anything that wasn’t cinnamon and safety and my mother breathing evenly in the next room.
This morning I was making tea—real tea, with a kettle that clicks off like punctuation—when the bakery downstairs started playing something through the floorboards. A thump of bass, a bright little song, the kind that tries to keep you smiling while you’re carrying flour sacks.
Normal.
Then the music cut out.
Not like the playlist ended. Like someone reached into the world and switched it off. Something told me this was important, so I turned on the radio.
A voice came through, fuzzy at first. I thought it was an advert.
My first stupid thought was: Is this about me?
Then the signal cleared.
“This is the North American Continuity Broadcast,” the voice said. Calm. Male. Midwestern, maybe. The kind of accent you’re supposed to trust. “Service interruption is expected in all former United States territories as the Republic of Gilead continues stabilisation measures. Citizens are reminded that unauthorised travel is treason.”
I froze with the mug in my hand.
The voice kept going, smooth as oil.
“Curfew remains in effect from nineteen hundred hours. Women are reminded of their household duties and may not conduct financial transactions without registered guardianship. Reports of dissident activity will be rewarded. Blessed are the obedient.”
Blessed are the—
I almost dropped the mug.
I thought about the word blessed the way it used to show up in speeches and captions and award acceptance speeches. Blessed to be here. Blessed to do what I love. Blessed to have fans like you.
Now it sounded like a lock clicking shut.
The radio crackled, then another voice joined, brighter, almost cheerful, as if this were the weather.
“Please stand by for the Hymn of Gratitude,” it said.
And then music started. Not pop. Not even the kind of hymn my grandmother used to hum. This was… a march wearing church clothes. A melody designed for people to sing in unison.
I turned the dial. Static. Another station. More static. Then the same voice again, on a different frequency, like it was flooding the air.
The bakery music never came back.
I sat down on the kitchen floor, my back against the cupboard, and tried to breathe normally.
I’m safe.
I’m safe.
I’m safe.
My phone was on the counter. I picked it up without thinking, thumb sliding to the news apps like muscle memory.
Everything loaded… slowly. And then not at all.
When it finally refreshed, the headlines were a blur of words I’d been avoiding:
NEW ORDER
CONTINUITY GOVERNMENT
REFUGEE SURGE
BORDER INCIDENT
“ILLEGAL FEMINIST NETWORK” DISRUPTED
I scrolled until my hand started shaking.
Then I went to my own name.
Not the one on my passport.
The other one.
The one people chant. The one printed in glitter on T-shirts. The one that used to feel like armour.
On social media, my last post was still there. The one from 2026. The one that had started all of this for me—choosing the risky statement like I was choosing a filter.
But now the likes were frozen at a number that didn’t look real anymore.
The comments were different. Not hate. Not love.
Just emptiness.
And then—new comments, all the same, posted by accounts with flags and no faces:
TRAITOR
SILENCE
UNWOMAN
RETURN AND REPENT
My stomach rolled.
I stared at the screen for a long time, like if I stared hard enough it would become the old internet again. The stupid internet. The harmless internet. The place where people argued about my hair and not my right to exist.
My mother came in, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, instantly alert. Mothers can hear panic even when it’s quiet.
I pointed at the radio.
She listened for less than ten seconds before her face changed. Not surprise. Not disbelief.
Just grim recognition. Like she’d known this day would come and had been walking towards it her whole life.
She turned it off.
The silence afterwards felt loud.
“We’re safe,” she said, and her voice sounded like she was trying to convince both of us. “We’re here. That’s what matters.”
I nodded.
But my hands were still shaking.
Because it wasn’t just out there. It had followed us into the air.
It existed now, broadcastable. Official.
Gilead wasn’t a rumour anymore. It had a schedule.
I looked down at my phone.
At my profile.
At my name.
It suddenly felt like a flare in the dark. A bright little beacon saying: Here I am. Here I am. Come get me.
I opened settings.
Account.
Name.
The cursor blinked at me like a heartbeat.
I deleted the stage name letter by letter.
It was weirdly hard. Like peeling off your own skin.
When it was gone, I didn’t replace it with my real name. Not yet. I left it blank.
Just empty space.
A ghost account.
No icon. No bio. No proof.
I went through every platform I could still access and did the same. Unlink. Disconnect. Remove. Hide.
It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t feel heroic.
It felt like turning out the lights in a house you’re leaving forever.
When I finished, I sat there for a moment, staring at the blank profile page.
I thought I would feel smaller.
I thought I would feel relieved.
Instead I felt… strange.
Light.
Like for the first time in years there wasn’t a version of me being owned by everyone else.
My mother watched me from the doorway. She didn’t ask why. She just nodded, like she understood.
“What now?” I whispered.
She came over, crouched beside me, and put her hand over mine.
“Now,” she said softly, “you live.”
Outside, the street was calm. A dog barked once. Somewhere a car door shut. Canada continued being itself, stubbornly ordinary.
I looked at my empty profile.
No name.
No glitter.
No applause.
Just a human being, breathing.
And somewhere, far away, a new country was telling women what they were allowed to do with their hands.
I closed the app.
I didn’t delete the diary.
Not yet.
Because maybe one day, when it’s safe again—when the air belongs to everyone and not just the loudest men—someone will need proof that this happened.
That it didn’t arrive all at once with uniforms and slogans.
That it crept in through “temporary”.
Through “for your safety”.
Through a song you kept singing because someone in your ear told you to keep going.
I used to write love songs.
Maybe I still will.
But not the kind that ask for permission.