All You've Done is Cut Me in Half

“Our friendship had nothing accidental did it. Even at the start you set out to breed me into something better. Which you did. You removed my immaturity at just the right time and saved me a lot of energy and I sped away happy and alone in a new tone away from you, and now you produce a leash, curl the leather round and round your fist, and walk straight into me. And you pull me home. Like those breeders of bull terriers in the Storyville pits who can prove anything of their creatures, can prove how determined they are by setting the, onto an animal and while the jaws clamp shut they can slice the dog’s body in half knowing the jaws will still not let go.

All the time I hate what I am doing and want the other. In a room full of people I get frantic in their air and their shout and when I’m alone I sniff the smell of their bodies against my clothes. I’m scared, Webb don’t think I will find one person who will be the right audience. All you’ve done is cut me in half, pointing me here, Where I don’t want to find these answers.”

Friendships don’t last forever.

I’m just being realistic. Of all the people you know now, only one (if at all), will probably maintain their ‘homeboy’ station in your heart when you’re bordering on geriatric. And even some friendships seem to last for only a short term. In the first sentence, the word 'had' demonstrates that Webb and Bolden used to be friends, but it’s a thing of the past.

By using the phrase ‘Even at the start’, he demonstrates how the following will be something Webb did occasionally during their friendship, which was try to ‘better’ Bolden. Even the latter thought of himself as someone who was yet to be the best person out there.

Bolden proceeds to compare himself to a dog in the way that---after he succeeded in maturing, supposedly--- he sped away happily into a new town, leaving all of Webb’s annoying tendencies (and probably a vapid home) behind. And yet no matter what, Webb came back like those breeders (which give the aura of a cruel, tough, and authority-endowed persona) and ‘tore’ Bolden in half. And of course Webb knew he had stopped Bolden’s chance at happiness, and even in that moment, knew Bolden would always reminisce, crave, and be engulfed in the memories of that glimpse at bliss.

In the second paragraph we deduce (quite obviously) that Bolden is a bundle of conflict. All the time, every single day of his life, never has he been completely satisfied with what he is doing, which leads one to infer that he has never been satisfied with himself. He always wants what he doesn’t obtain. Common nature, and yet with his inability to ever enjoy himself when he finally attains them, quite sad.

He gets annoyed by being surrounded by people (maybe because he’s so different and can’t relate to anyone in life) and yet can’t mange loneliness and craves the “smell”, the knowledge or feeling that he is not alone in this world. He is lost and scared and can’t seem to find a way to a peaceful time on Earth. And while he knows there are reasons he is the way he is, and Webb has “cut him and half”, rendering him vulnerable to anything, pointing him here---the reasons for why he is who he is---, he is too much of a coward to bare himself and find out.