Karaoke Pt. III
"I've never been so alone, and I've never been so alive." Third Eye Blind, Motorcycle Driveby
III: Soul Pod
“She asked if we had ever been lovers. I said yeah, in a past life.”
“You’re so right. In a past life, I think we were wives. Stars in the same constellation, but not too far apart because what if I lost you up there?”
“We have been everything in every life. Sisters, mothers, you were probably my daughter in one of them and the other way around.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
My best friend taught me how to be alone. She’s been traveling by herself in other countries and within her own family for centuries. Writing to me about food poisoning in Spain and the tile museum in Portugal. The sun moves with her in blinding light and warm casts, everyone else lives in the dark. She exists on every plane, impenetrable. Errant. The hottest woman you’ve ever seen. We joke she has dragon spit and poison in her veins. She can’t touch velour, certain kinds of cotton, and definitely not the paper sticker that holds silverware together. She is too delicate for these things, and at the same time, made of metal.
After I got my ass kicked in high school, she braided my hair into two plaits for school the next day. I was a warrior with a patch of hair missing on one side and a new desire to neutralize every blonde bitch in that place. Except her. The only blonde I’ve ever loved.
She taught me how to be the most desirable person in the room. I can explain this, but I have to show you.
It’s 2007 and we’re singing “Motorcycle Driveby” in the car, I look over and she’s belting it with her white locks blowing in the wind and the hair getting tangled in her mouth. Picture a boy learning to play that song for her on guitar. She wasn’t impressed. A queen with rotating jesters who never make the cut. It’s a few years before that and I’m sitting like I always do in my AP psychology class, waiting for something to happen. I hear someone behind me whisper do you have a tissue? I turn around and the girl behind me has gushing blood running from her nose. Dripping blood ticks onto the desk and I get up to help. I never had to be alone after that. She was my something.
I’m skipping ahead. To tell you between then and now would take novels and dictionaries and an accompanying podcast and maybe one day you’ll be lucky enough to know our in-betweens, but for now please know there is no one I’d rather lay in bed with, high as hell, running back the same shit we’ve been talking about since we were sixteen.
Our thirties.
After my best friend had her heart trusted, dissected, leased, ripped out, put back in, and dyed a different color, she moved into a house across the street and we pulled moss off her organs one by one – this will be the last time we have to do this. We promise to never hide ourselves inside another person ever again.
She taught me to always have music playing. As soon as you walk in the door and fling your shoes off. Alexa, play Harry Styles. Alexa, play Happy Mix. Keep water in a big filtered container in the fridge so you can hydrate while you heal. Buy records and tickets to concerts. Keep events on the calendar and write everything down. Reconnect with your family, figure out how to be good to them. Get a decent therapist who listens and challenges you. Read books and go on dates and learn how to do a smokey eye. Run errands and meal plan. Buy a juicer and negotiate your salary at work. Get a variety of weed pens. Sleepy stuff and one for going out. One to melt into the couch. Most importantly, learn to self-tan and how to give yourself a blowout. Learn to build a routine.
She gave me the blueprint for coming back to yourself after you’ve been gone for so long. It’s easy to forget what you mean to yourself when you spend years wondering what you mean to someone else. In my nightmares, I try to slap her awake as she rots away in another man’s house. Cooking, cleaning, renovating and convincing herself she’s not crazy. You aren’t crazy, I scream but she just blinks back at me. I know you better than anyone and I would know if you were crazy. In her nightmares, I’m swallowed whole by a man who hasn’t been to the dentist since he was a toddler and I’m letting him pick the paint colors for a bathroom he’ll never remodel. I wait and wait and wait until my hair falls out and I forget that I can leave as easily as I entered.
We hold hands and look back at the rubble, fire, and smoke only to thank it for its lessons, and remind ourselves to never return.
In every life, she has nosebleeds and in every life, I need her. We agreed upon this cue, this signal. When I get to where I’m going, I’ll look for her and she’ll look for me and we’ll never be alone again.