Wish You Were Here
- May 13, 2020
- 6 min read
by Katherine Morgan
I close my eyes, a sweaty canned margarita clutched in my right hand, and begin to dance about around my apartment. The MTV Unplugged version of Mariah Carey’s “Emotions” is blaring from my speakers. I’m drunkenly attempting to sing along, missing high note after high note but not giving a single damn about it. The can says “mango margarita” but tastes more like straight tequila with a whisper of mango, so it’s not as sweet as I would normally like it, but I choke it down anyway. Even with all my effort, I’m only halfway through the can. It does not matter though. This is the most alive that I have felt in weeks. I turn the volume up. The music is too loud, but I wonder if it is because even though I’ve lived here for over a year, my walls are still mostly empty. I glance at the pile of artwork that I have accumulated that has continued to grow in the corner and shrug. That is a quarantine activity for another day.
I shake my body, moving my hips, allowing Mariah to help me get to where I need to go. I twist and turn, whipping all 230 pounds around like God himself intended. It doesn’t matter that I can’t dance because nothing matters more than this feeling. Drunk Katherine doesn’t care what she looks like. Drunk Katherine doesn’t need to worry about surviving. She just wants to be in the moment.
When the final note of “Emotions” fades out, I stop moving, realizing how quiet and unwelcoming this space feels. After a moment, the old pipes in my bathroom begin to creak, clanging right on schedule. I look around. The television is still on, but I don’t recognize the show. The lights in my living room are brighter than I remember them being. I am finally at the bottom of the can, and I resist the urge to crack open another one. There’s a pandemic, and I don’t have anywhere to go, but I’ve managed to convince myself that I still need to keep a schedule. I need to experience the emotions that come with clocking in and out every day.
Right now, I don’t want the party to end. I grab my phone, texting my friends as I walk into the bathroom to take a shower. I strip, peeling off the outfit that I’ve been wearing consistently for the past three days and tossing it on the floor. Out of habit, I sniff my armpits, recoiling at the scent. “Jesus Christ,” I mutter to myself, but honestly, I’m a little proud of how disgusting I can be. I queue up my favorite getting ready playlist, belting out “Misery Business” by Paramore as I climb into my blue and white clawfoot tub. The hot water splashes on my skin, the steam coating the mirror until I can no longer make out my shape through the shower curtain. I stomp my feet along to the chorus of “Marry the Night,” taking note of how I should remove the toenail polish that I’ve been wearing since January. By the time that I get out and dry myself off, Shania Twain is playing and I’m only trying to have a good time.
I skip to the bedroom, reflecting on my naked body in the mirror, noticing that there are still warm beads of water rolling down the sides of my flesh, dripping onto the hardwood floors. I twist my body around, noticing the package of rolls on my back. I am nothing but flesh. My stomach hangs. Every part of my body looks bigger than it did last week. I begin to laugh to myself, because if there was any time to hate my body, it would be now when there was no one around to correct me. I grab my flesh and I hold onto it. I used to pinch it, the sharp pain dissolving after a few minutes, which made me want to grab it again and again. I don’t miss the red marks from pinching. I don’t miss the sobbing, the heartache, the overwhelming urge to fix. I grin at myself, the liquor still giving me a high that I didn’t know that I needed. “I’m so happy that I don’t hate you right now,” I giggle, slapping my bare ass. I almost lean into the mirror to kiss myself, as if I am a drunk girl in a nightclub bathroom, but I stop short of doing so.
Finally, I turn the playlist off. I put on a clean red shirt, leaving my bottom half bare so it can air dry. “I look like Winnie the Pooh,” I chuckle, as I lie down on my bed, on top of sheets that need to be washed yet again. I’m drunk, so I want to FaceTime someone. I open my contact list, scrolling to see who I could surprise. I check the time: it’s only 9:30 p.m. I ask around. One couple is having dinner but suggest that we schedule a time to video chat sometime that week. Another friend mentions that he is about to a watch a movie, presumably with his partner. I scroll for a few more minutes, growing discouraged with every flick of my finger. I am suddenly aware of how alone I am. I click open Instagram and send a sexy photo to a man that I look forward to meeting once this pandemic is over. He responds appropriately, but it doesn’t fulfill me in the way that I thought it would. I put my phone down beside me, face up. There are no new notifications.
I cross through the living room, making my way into the kitchen. I pour a bowl of Cheerios, cursing as I narrowly step over pieces of cereal as they fall. I sit back on my bed, scrolling through social media. Everyone appears to be putting on a brave face. Everyone continuously says that we’re all in this together. Everyone is so grateful. I tell myself that this isn’t the worst thing that I’ve ever been through, so I know that I am capable of surviving this. I want to be the epitome of being grateful. I slurp down my cereal, making a satisfied noise as the spoon hits the bottom of the now empty bowl.
As I turn off the light, I place my body in the center of the bed. I was too aware of the space beside me as I slept, so I shifted, giving my body the wingspan that it needed. I desire knowing what it feels like to have a warm body beside me, comforting me in ways that I didn’t know that I needed. I want to know that someone is there, living their life beside me. I used to joke around with my friends that because I worked so much, no one would ever know that I died unless I didn’t show up for a scheduled shift that day. Now, no one would know if I died unless I didn’t wake up and tweet. There’s something oddly devastating about wanting to be missed. I desire something that I don’t know if I have ever felt.
I roll over in the middle of the night, opening my eyes to see the shape of a can on my nightstand. I prop myself up, grab the now warm can, and drink the last sip. The buzz has long worn off, but the beginning of a slight headache has appeared behind my right eye. This is something that I can fix tomorrow, I think to myself, even though I know that there is nothing to fix. I am fine. Things are fine. The world will be fine. Yet, things sure sound differently when there is no music playing.
Katherine Morgan is the assistant features editor for The Rumpus and a bookseller at Powell’s Books. She is the author of the debut chapbook No Self-Respecting Woman. Her essay about the presidential election of Donald Trump will be featured in the upcoming anthology Fury: Women’s Lived Experience During the Trump Era (Pact Press, 2020). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming at Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Portland Mercury, HelloGiggles, Ravishly, jmww journal, and The Establishment. Her work has been nominated for the Best of Net award. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where you can find her snuggling with her cat Ramona, and crying during the series finale of Frasier.
