Dedicated to my best friend

I think often about who you are, both outside of and in the midst of our friendship. I think about everything you’ve told me. What sets us apart? What brings us together? Do you like me? In what way? Who am I to you?

And you may ask me, “Who am I, to you, Jordan?”
I think you’re the fucking Antichrist.
I honestly think you couldn’t be a worse person. I do not believe you can be a worse, more depraved, and innately awful human being. And that’s exactly what I like about you. You fear being an atrocity, you don’t embrace it, nor wave the flag of depravity. Paradoxically, this makes you inherently a level-headed, intelligent person. I honestly think you couldn’t be a better person. I do not believe you can be a better, more altruistic, and innately wonderful human being. I have so many questions for you that I’d love answered, but I believe in leaving nature alone. 
I stare into your eyes and I see the epitome of true horror. I see the man who will kill me over and over.
I stare into your eyes and I see the epitome of benevolence. I see the man who will lend a hand to me.
You know nothing about me.
You have your own hints about it, I’m sure. Would a sliver of my face hurt you any more?
Do I deliver myself in picture frames? You are an enigma to me. A puzzle box, a fucked up Rubik's cube. You’re a fathomless being, I could not come up with you in a thousand pages. This riddle, pinked with slight rebellion.
You are like me in the sense that we think alike. We understand each other in the way a rabbit understands a hare. The hare and the rabbit, are both intrinsically the same and entirely different animals. Our minds are intrinsically different, and yet I understand that mind that speaks in Greek and you understand the one that speaks in Pig Latin. If I am paper, you are origami.
Directly against the teachings of Christ, and yet you follow them every step of the way.
You dive headfirst and snap your neck, is it a means of surviving?
You have found me in all the lives you’ve lived, and you will find me in the next ones. Our faces will vary, but do not doubt or falter, you will meet me in another body, but you will feel the spirit of the same womb. Brothers from other mothers, but I will tell you now, you will know. Maybe not now, maybe not then, but it will catch up to you like a flu of no other kind.
It doesn’t matter what you do, you will see my bones. You will bust skulls against me, you will hold hands with me, we will brush fingers in every lifetime.

I wonder, what were your first thoughts meeting me? Seeing my face? Hearing my voice?
What did you want to do? Could you see into the future?
I talked as though inertia were a mere suggestion. And forgive me if we’re not as close anymore, forgive me if I’ve forgotten my place (in reality). Forgive me if I’ve forgotten my enemy. There is a God between my bloodied fingers, and in between screens.

And you may ask me, “Who am I, to you, Jordan?”
I think you are the only human I can love.
Do you open up like that to every guy you meet? Do you tell everyone who you are?
Am I to you what a key is to a lock or do you cut your friends into the same shape? It won’t hurt my feelings if you say I’m not special.
I think we are close as to where, akin to Adam and Eve, you are the flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. Vice viscera. And yet, I wonder yet again, “Do you think of me the same?” “Does it fit, to you?” Would you be okay with that? Or are we no longer in that phase of the moon?
Would it be okay if I were the one to name animals this time?
Why not me?
And I know you’d never want that. For everything to be okay, and for us to be as close as we were, or are. I am a reminder of who you are. The direct reflection, a mirror. I harbor every word you tell me. I am the rearview mirror of everything you in yourself and yet somehow you cannot see what I see, I somehow do not hold the visage of the side of you I cannot help but love. I have tried everything.
Is it willful ignorance or are you truly blind to my praise? I am the silhouette that will stay when you are gone. Your legacy lives on through me, because I remember, because I know, because I cannot forget. The song you taught me that you now never speak of, the one I desperately wish to sing but cannot without a choir.

Despite it all, it’s still you.
And I can’t hate you.

And you may ask me, “Who am I, to you, Jordan?”
It’s a horrifying, harrowing admission to make now, that I believe you are the only close, human bond I will ever have. And maybe this friendship is fleeting now, and I feel it’s unfair that I can’t confide. I am not the one that spills my guts to you. Unfortunately I don’t know how, an instinct that is absent in me, one present in everyone else. I feel it’s dangerous to express myself.
I know I am open enough with you.
I know you think you can read me, maybe.
For you to be more open with me would require the same from me. I would also have to cut into my stomach and retrieve my viscera. And if you asked, I would. Loose lips sink ships. Strangely enough, I feel as though I want to run away with you, and it’s terrifying to say that the warm embrace of a predator is the only comfort I am familiar with.
I need you to share a cigarette with me. I need your cells to curdle when they feel my absence. I need your blood transfused into mine. I need you to poke between the gaps in my ribs. I need you to press down on that quarter-inch scar on the crown of my skull. I need you to push back the lump in my throat. I need you to hear all of my apologies.
Do you really hate me? Do you really want to see me cry?
All because I pray to a God?

I want to bathe in my grave.
Can we please get away?

Which brings me to the question, “Who am I to you?”