this guitar is an accidental steel string. has seen me born and bathed beneath stubby fingers and teething crocodile stubs. it knows the boots of post-recession shows of wealth. it sings everybody hurts by r.e.m. and it has seen me play. and cry. and play and stutter and play and stop.
it knows that i wanted the drums. but little generation-gap girls on the main street do not get to be so loud and cause such racket, bang-and-crash.
the accidental steel string is an accidental lesson in the pities and throes and sorrows and woes of dangerous late-stage teenage sadness. shame; anxious gasoline stuffing up the atrium exhausts.
i’d play if i could sing;
but u can;
but i can’t; but
it’s not true, is it? you need an outward thing to blame. no one does what they ought to. you don’t sing because you’re bad at it, but what else do you have? what makes you so special? you barely make it through days. you talk beyond the mumble. you dance to flail. what’s the difference?
i ought to play. put my hands to work the only way i know how. but the skull’s bulbous sore switches itself off: says this old friend left better off alone cannot hate me if i hate it first. i cannot fail without toeing the humiliation line; the original hide n seek. my hands are oily with jealousy. everything touched is glossy.
competitiveness. that’s the crutch. the oozing cut. when will it heal over? when can i let it go?
