How to Make Friends with the Dark

by Kathleen Glasgow

“That’s some very hunky-dory peace-and-love shit, Tiger, but his skin color does matter. And he’s not Black; one ethnicity isn’t like, one size fits all, you know? You can’t just pretend color doesn’t matter because you think it shouldn’t, because you were born with white skin and privilege. And you can’t pretend to not notice racism because you listen to the one famous Black guy every single year. That’s not enough. There are terrible, terrible people in the world. Kai’s life will always be vastly different from yours.”

It’s very hard to think of your parents as people. Full of bad checks and bad decisions, fistfights and broken hearts, all of

Who would ever guess that it isn’t your bones or your blood or your heart that keeps everything humming along inside you, it’s your freaking mom,

“Just love who you want, you know? Life is so much shit. We should just be able to love who we want.”