Elliot

“Every family has a myth for the young to inherit – an undocumented fable passed between mouths, a grave illness to be contracted – as if the very words were a blight to infect the youth with and let them know they’re now welcome to the fold.
After all, what exactly is a family, if not a brotherhood and sisterhood afflicted with the same terminal disease?”
― Eric LaRocca, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“How much of my mother's life I missed because I was a child”
― Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji

“Some people can't see softness without wanting to hurt it”
― Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji

“I'm not what anyone thinks I am. I never was. I didn't have the mouth to put it into words, to say what was wrong, to change the things I felt I needed to change. And every day it was difficult, walking around and knowing that people saw me one way, knowing that they were wrong, so completely wrong, that the real me was invisible to them. It didn't even exist to them. So: If nobody sees you, are you still there?”
― Akwaeke Emezi, The Death of Vivek Oji