The Unbearable Whiteness of Being, Part II

Let’s be honest with ourselves about ourselves, America. For a very long time, many of us United States citizens gallumphed through life with a certain grinning arrogance. Contemporary Don Quixotes, we donned relentless positivity like custom suits of tinfoil armor. As tourists, we were known abroad for our loud cheer: a skin-deep friendliness completely detached […]

Pain // Power // Protest II

Celebrity deaths tend to be straightforward news for me, easy enough to accept, even when I’m an admirer of the star in question. What ends befall the famous rarely wound or trouble me much at all. When someone I admire disappears from this life, my internal monologue peacefully rambles: A person succeeded, impacted, inspired, created […]

Pain // Power // Protest I

How does it feel / to be on your own / with no direction home / a complete unknown / just like a rolling stone? I am terribly alight with rage, so laden with sorrow—sometimes in passing, other times for days, weeks, longer (I don’t know what proportion of my days are spent this way, […]