I love you. I always have. I remember the first time I met you, and I remember so many things. I remember watching you skate and when you popped your finger out of place. I remember when you tried to teach me how to roll a joint out at the boat launch and how I always felt so special when you'd take me places just you and me. I remember being in the Flats with you for hours and hours, we began at the top of the Shale Pile, and you were lost and sitting there and had gone down some tunnel far away in your mind and I looked into you in that moment and saw something I'd never seen in you before and something I'm sure you have most of the time tried to hide. It's okay to hide that part of yourself sometimes, to protect it, because it is quite fragile, but there comes a time when you need to embrace it before it's concealment poisons you, and I think you should maybe think about it now.
Listen, it's not enough for me to just say I love you and leave it at that. I love you doesn't quite cut it. Baby, I will do anything for you. I would give pieces of myself for you. Pounds of flesh and strips of my heart. Do you need a mother? I will be your mother. I will let you rest your head on my chest and sing you to sleep. I will hold you and hold the wolves of this world at bay. I will cook you meals and make sure you tie your shoes and wash behind your ears. Is that what you need? Do you need someone who will take away the hurt and become a veil between you and the world? I will do it. I will. If this will save you. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry that back in the Fall, I didn't hang out with you when you called me because I thought to myself "Well, I can't go to the bar because I'm sober now and I just can't really be around all that shit." Maybe if I had just hung out with you, you'd have seen that you could have a friend who was sober and you maybe could have stayed clean, too. I'm sorry. I know, I shouldn't give myself so much credit, it probably wouldn't have been enough anyway because I know it's hard, but I just can't help thinking what if I'd been there for you more back then...and now maybe it's too late and I won't even get to hug you one last time.
I don't understand. I know that this is obvious to you. I don't understand why you are punishing yourself like this. Why you are punishing the people who love you. You are a smart person, I know this. You are smart and you must see that death is very near to you. And there are those who would say that death is near us at all times and that everyone dies so what's the big deal? And I would say to you that I know that, I know that everyone dies, but I don't want you to die like this. I don't want you to die like an animal, like a dog, who slinks off alone somewhere so he can die a quiet death without being ripped apart, or like a dog who is hunted down and exterminated by master's who have become it's enemy and who's body will be left for the crows. I don't want you to die this way. I don't want to go to your funeral and look at your body with a face I can't even recognize anymore either through violence or starvation.
I want to hug you. I want to hold you in my arms and smell your smell, your warm, clean, laundry and cologne smell. I want to kiss your smooth face, your forehead, your cheekbones, your eyes. I want to press my cheek against your cheek and hold you for a long time and let you feel something good that's real. Not this good, this artificial good, this devil that has taken you and will take you from us all. Something real. Feel me, baby. I love you, brother. Feel me. Feel me and know that I can make a wall between you and the world. Feel me and know that I'm real and I'm a love that is a fire that you can step into and burn with love.
