look:
i would like to be your best friend.

the thing is, i won't talk to you because i get scared of human contact and i will studiously ignore you in the elevator. if i see you coming i will cross the street to avoid having to smile into your honest eyes.

but for the holidays i will mail you a ruler, so you can draw straight lines and measure things.
see, i'm interested in putting order into people's lives, not fucking them over.


---


once a soccer player gave me whooping cough and then got rejected from the college of his choice.

this is called karma. this is called divine intervention. this is called my life in one hundred words or less.

i like tall tales, and asymmetry, and sparkles, and watching shows about meth amphetamines.
i am a bad influence on children. i am a bad influence on you.

i'll understand if you close your eyes and pretend i don't exist.


---


it will take me three years to save up enough money to buy us a set of those friendship necklaces that say "best friends," where each person takes one half. you would probably let me have the "friends" half, because i wouldn't want to wear a necklace that says "best."

a best friend would be really thoughtful like that.

in six months my guess is that you will lose your half of the necklace, but will be too afraid to tell me.

fact: we are allowed to disappoint each other.
fact: beer before liquor, never sicker.
fact: a donde fueres haz lo que vieres.


---


once in first grade i set my carpet on fire, not because i was angry or sad or upset or belligerent or devious. i just wanted to and so i did. there is no plot to this story, no turning point or climax or denouement. i set my carpet on fire and the carpet was beige and it burned and that is all there is to say about that, probably.
but i started writing afterwards.

"somos como actuamos."
my  professor told me that today. "we are how we act."

does that mean if we act like we are loved, we are loved?

as my best friend, i expect that you would tell me things are going to be okay, even if they aren't.
right?


---


i'm tired of inventing us a past.
it's not that i can distinctly remember the texture of your cheek pressed against mine in the photo booth, or the way your limbs waved underwater like something unreal--

but if we were best friends we could practice diving off the side of the pool at midnight until we could slide into the water without a ripple.

until there was no evidence that we were ever there at all.