To my lovely guitar,
It’s over.
Fender, and that is the last time I’ll use your name, it is over and I hope your rot in your sad little corner propped up against a suitcase. I used to love strumming jazz tunes with you with a little comping action that transforms any 7th arrangement into jazzy gold. There was so much love in my very first strums and then a little finger picking that I know you love so much. You use to sing when I would do that. I would care for you, replacing strings gently, strumming them over and over to tune them by ear. I know it tickled you every time that I slid my fingers down your frets, I can still hear how high it was when sliding down high E – that one you loved the most and it resounded in you warmly and happily. Hour after hour was spent with you and I never thought I would part ways. Hours of devotion brought us together and together we would create magic.
I don’t want to.
I want to be with you forever.
But I can’t.
Because you’re a slut.
You’re a dirty rotten cheating whore of a guitar. It started with outdoor gatherings. You would beg to come along and I thought it was cute that you wanted to be in my life, and that my life seemed more interesting when you were around. I was deceived. You came so you could meet other guitarists. I tolerated my friends playing with you. They would know a chord or two, maybe a song, but it always fell dead. No one could play like I did and you always came back. But then more guitarists showed up at our outings when you took me to shows. They saw how beautiful you are and you wanted to be passed around like the cheap whore you are. Musician after musician banged out tunes and barely retuned you in the process, laid waste to your beauty with pick scratches and so you would return to me like a crack whore who had spent the night out doing god knows what.
Stupidly I would lend you out to local musicians. You begged for it and pleaded for it because then you would be on the stage looking out. You would be the star at last. I should have let you go then, but I didn’t; I still fell for you every time I picked you up. You begged to be lent out, too good to only be with me. So they would pay me and you would go. I would spend the night in while you were out worried about what condition you would come back in. You would come back with broken strings and scratches and beer stains and still want to go out the next night. I was caring for you the entire time without acknowledgment. I was the one who restored you every time. And you still went out.
You’re a whore and a horrible being.
So now your fate is sealed — left in a corner to rot by my suitcase. Maybe one day I’ll bring you out, play a little jazz to myself, and then put you in your dungeon and zip the soft cover over you and never let you out. However, one day, one day in the future, I will release you. I will sell you to a young person looking for his/her second guitar and you will make them happy and you will have learned your lesson by that time.
jameswilliaml 