Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

by Eric LaRocca

After all, what exactly is a family, if not a brotherhood and sisterhood afflicted with the same terminal disease?

If it seems like I am somewhat hesitant, it’s merely because it feels like I’m holding a funeral for my former self – the person I was before I lived with integrity and honesty. It’s the funeral for a person I wouldn’t want you to know.

“A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.”

When you’re gay, you have the privilege of choosing your family.

I learned quickly that blood is not always thicker than water. Sometimes the people that care for us the most are the people we least expect.

I once read somewhere that if your mind continuously returns to the same person over and over again, it means that they’re thinking of you as well.

At the end of each day, he used to ask me, “what have you done today to deserve your eyes?”

when you change, the people around you start to change as well.

When I walked, it felt as if a thick red weed sprouted from each of my footprints – a trail for anyone daring enough to follow.

I have another task for you. Something that will undoubtedly make you uncomfortable. Then again, aren’t those the moments when we change the most – when we’re uncomfortable?

There’s a reason objects burn up when they fall to earth like gruesome angels – a reason other than the obvious one. Asteroids the size of armored cars narrow to mere pebbles in a matter of seconds. It’s because the planet is a carnivore and just wants to be fed. People want that as well. People like to eat other people. I spent so many years forgetting I had teeth, too.

There’s something Godlike about holding something so small – something that solely depends on your kindness, your generosity. I had never thought about hurting something before. Until now. I imagined what it might feel like. I imagined closing my hand to make a fist until its tiny body was squished, its innards squeezed out like toothpaste from its mouth open in a muted scream.

Sometimes we say or do things to people we love because we know it will hurt them.

guess that’s what makes people do horrible things – they think whatever they’re doing isn’t nearly as bad as what somebody else will do

I can’t take ownership of your destruction. I want this to stop.