Bury A Friend By Billie A Song Of Armor Against Cancer

Two months after reaching my fifth year fighting this monster that lives inside of me known as cancer for the second time, I was playing music to drown out the sounds of the IV pumping fluids and antibiotics into my veins, the hustle and bustle of conversations at the near by nurses station and the occasional hollar of some disgruntled patient in the distance. Feeling unmoved by the playlists I had created to help keep me motivated and upbeat when I found myself in the trenches at the hospital, trying to get a handle on the latest infection or whatever other havoc the monster within was causing my body. I decided to listen to a “New Hits”station I found. Moments later, a tribal beat began playing through my headphones that seemed to connect to my heart and bring it back to life slowly in combination with lyrics that also expressed feelings I felt yet unwilling up until that point to acknowledge. I heard the song “Bury A Friend” by Billie Eilish for the first time. The lyrics “What do you want from me? Why don’t you run from me? What do you know?” All questions I had asked myself indirectly to my cancer thinking of it as it’s own entity that had taken up an unwelcomed or wanted residency in my body. To my amusement ironically the title of the entire album and subsequently part of the hook to “ Bury A Friend” was “When we all fall asleep where do we go?” This line seemed particularly poignant because doctors had repeatedly talked about how important it was to get enough sleep because it is during sleep the body truly heals. Often making me wonder, if that’s the case, why can’t they just put me in a constant state of sleep so I don’t have to feel the pain as my body endures the treatments? If only, I could sleep through it. What was this unconscious mysterious space known as sleep? Does my physical body go there or just my spiritual body or both? Only a few phrases later “I wanna I wanna I wanna end me bury a friend I wanna end me” It was the first time that I found a way to express wanting this all to end, not wanting to end my life but wanting the suffering to end, wanting the battle to end wanting the need to fight to end, wanting to end the person I’d become. I could no longer recognized myself this post-diagnosis anxious shell of myself, worried about waking up the next day and feeling worse than the day before, worried about if I was staying hydrated enough or what my numbers looked like or what any little change in my coloring or appearance meant. Before cancer I was laid-back and always thought that life had a way of working out. I never really worried about anything just did what I needed to do trusting fate and destiny with everything else. The worried person I’d become after cancer, I wanted to end that person. I wanted to bury that friend, that timid, check list making person trying to manage the unthinkable. To find myself able go back to being my carefree self with a greater appreciation of who I was before this time of warfare. The next lyrics “staple your tongue step on the glass” would resonate because at times I thought I would like to do anything to myself that might cause greater pain than the pain caused by treatment, that which was supposed to be making me better anything to create a lasting distraction. The song goes on to talk about believing that the monster could do something for you . In truth amidst all of this personal turmoil and struggle there are friends I have made and experiences I got to have, once-in-a-lifetime kind of things occur thanks to this living monster inside of me still, the cost was too much as the song lyrics dictate “I’m too expensive, probably something that shouldn’t be said out loud I thought I’d be dead by now”. As much as I want to live there’s always the reality of astronomical medical bills that won’t be completely covered by insurance and the possibility that after all of this fight, stuggle, and emotional turmoil, death could happen for me sooner than most people my age.

While the song is indeed heavy, the beat is catchy and flows letting you get lost in the rhythmic underbelly and absurdity of sounds effects intertwined in the baseline. All the while, still inviting lyrical expression of the darker side of ourselves or of an experience than most of the triumphant “I will survive” anthem songs that I tended to gravitate towards in the first few years of my battle. Allowing myself permission to express these darker elements of my cancer journey through the song “ Bury A Friend” it gave a different kind of strength found in freedom and greater determination to find a way to bury the part of myself that fights this battle so that I can regain who l was before with tremendous appreciation, a bit more edge and a lot more knowledge. ”Bury A Friend” has become my new anthem that is played just slightly more than the upbeat ”I will survive” anthems that have always had coveted places on my playlists. I know eventually I will be completely healthy again and anytime I need reminding that it is okay to sometimes express and honor the more difficult parts of ourselves in this life I have the corky unconventional song “Bury A Friend” by Billie Eilish only a click away from blasting through my headphones as I sing along with all the conviction I can muster causing my heart to pound reminding me what it feels like to be alive and why I fight so hard to stay that way.