You have to realize there is nothing more you can do to convince someone you love to turn their life around. You simply have to say, "Look. I love you, but I cannot stand by and watch you kill yourself slowly. When you want help I'm here. Until then, goodbye." That may sound cruel, but self-preservation is paramount to helping someone else. If you're a wreck, you're useless to them, anyway. And if they refuse help, despite knowing the likely outcome, they will head down that path anyway.

I nod, because I do understand. I'm just not sure how to go about divorcing myself from the evil I've already accepted.

I tattered their wings and tore off their legs, joint by joint, watched them crawl in circles, like little lost infants, untill they decide to die.

Not Exactly True That skin hate is dead. There will never be color blindness in a culture of fear. But when you live afraid of your neighbor, the monster you should most walk in terror of thrives. It starts as a little thing, small enough to burrow into your pores, take up excruciating residence in the dark recesses of your brain. Its name is paranoia, and it spreads like an oil spill, there in the shadows, chokes your humanity. Threatens your soul.

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.

In control. Out of control. Sometimes they're the same thing. The trick is knowing that, realizing it's okay to feel out of control once in a while, as long as you're sure you can regain the upper hand when you absolutely need to.

Fear is a better friend than you, who feel nothing, beneath the weight of my pain.