You've Lost a Lot of Blood

by Eric LaRocca

Each precious thing I’ve ever shown him is a holy relic from the night we both perished—the night when I combed him from my hair and watered the moon with his blood.

killed him because to let him live, to let him exist would have been an insult.

You’d think a young man qualified for even the most menial office job would understand I was the furthest thing from a delicate heirloom—that I was a vile thing, obscene, and unspeakable.

For once, I’d like to see myself outside of myself. If that even makes sense. I’d like to crawl outside of my head and look back at the horrible thing I’ve become, the soulless spirit residing inside my shell.

I’d sooner swallow wet concrete than let him call me his or dare to call him mine.

our love was an illusion—something that had been invented by others.

“Verisimilitude,” the boy says, as they filter inside the house. “The appearance of being true or real.”

bubble of blood beading there as if it were a confession—a horrible admission of guilt of all the things you never shared with me.

I think there’s a small, quiet part of you that enjoys the misery I carefully feed you each day— as if it were the very thing keeping you alive.

Something that’s scary is intended to cause fear, to frighten you. However, something that’s disturbing is intended to cause anxiety and be worrying.

Sometimes things don’t have to be so didactic. A story can just be a story.

Bodies are not made of honeycomb. They’re not made of wax. Ever since the invention of skin, the human body has been a vessel of mystery—a purposeless shadow of oneself, something to be revered for its complexity but also never understood.

If relationships were physical things and not figurative constructs, then they would be parasites. Love between two people always changes who you are.