Peter Kalnin

“And who's next, Mr. and Mrs. America, now that the Bill of Rights is no longer the law of the land and the racial haters are running the show”
― Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

“Love isn’t like a cup of sugar that gets used up,”
― Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Brave

“We live in a time where it has become difficult to distinguish between the President's words and that of a 19 year old assailant. Society gives women the near impossible task of separating harmlessness from danger, the foresight of knowing what some men are capable of. When we call out assault when we hear it, Trump says, "I don't think you understand. Just words. You are overreacting. Overly offended. Hysterical. Rude. Relax." So we dismiss threatening statements and warning signs, apologizing for our paranoia. We go into a party or a meeting, thinking it's just a party or meeting, but when we are taken advantage of and come crawling back damaged they say, "How could you be so naive? You failed to detect danger, let your guard down. What did you think would happen?" Trump made it clear the game is rigged, the rules keep changing. It doesn't matter what you think is assault because, in the end, he decides.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“After You Left

the weight of your absence
became a black hole revolving
around my memory of you--itself
a black hole. Wavelets wrinkled
the sheer sheet of space and time.
Father, the loss of you is a planet
orbiting what might have been.
I cannot say if the emptiness is
a grand celestial body or a vacuum
so complete nothing can escape. I know
these forces have mass and motion
that bends, calls in, ripples fabric--
distorts the pace of light
for a billion years.”
― Michael Kleber-Diggs, Worldly Things