Dear Matthew,

I think of you. And wonder if you’re dead or alive, alive but dead. I can’t even remember which memory was the last time that I saw you.

Was it the day we wandered through Prospect Park, drifting down each crisscrossing trail, only to find ourselves back where we began?

The wind was brutal that day, my hair slapping sloppily across my face. It wasn’t yet spring and the winter air lingered, clouds dimming the sky overhead. The tip of my nose and fingers felt stingingly numb.

“Are you cold?” you asked me, seeing that I was nearly shivering.

“Yea, I should’ve worn a thicker jacket, but I didn’t think it would still be this cold.”

You took off your coat.

“Here,” you gestured.

“Thanks.”

You looked thin as usual in your worn black skinny jeans and sweater. It was your face that told me all that you didn’t. Your skin was so pale it made your freckles look tan, your eyes a tired pink underscored by shadowy flesh. The last few nights stuck on your face the way the coke stayed in your blood.

“Let me give you a piggyback ride,” you randomly said as we strayed uphill.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Come on, I’ll give you a piggyback,” you insisted as you stopped walking, kneeled down and positioned your back in front of me.

“Seriously? No, you’ll drop me.”

“Get on it’ll be fun,” you told me.

I gave in so easily. Left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down… I could feel your hips moving with your legs as you marched ahead with me on your back. I let my head sink into the space between your neck and shoulder, but my eyes kept careful watch of each forward step of your feet, scared those oxfords would slip and we’d both come falling down.

I told you about my sister’s fancy new job, and how she listed me as her beneficiary on one of the forms they had her fill out.

“What’s your sister again? A lawyer?” You asked.

“She’s in finance.”

“We should just kill your sister and take all the money.”

Even with all my limbs wrapped around you and my body pressed to your back, I still couldn’t feel any warmth from you. I wondered whom I had latched myself onto.

The air was starting to get icily sharp, the sun disappearing behind the trees just enough to highlight their barren branches. All I could feel was the prickly pins of wind gusting against my face.

“We should head back soon,” I finally said.

Was that the last time I saw you?

The only differentiation I have in my mind are the memories when you were sober and the times when you weren’t. I wonder if you are now, then I remember that I can no longer afford to know. Like a game of Barrel of Monkeys, precariously trying to loop arms to lift each other up, except the stakes were life. Yours and mine. One slip of a grip and we ended up back where we began.

I may not remember the last time I saw you, but I certainly remember the first day I met you.