Dear Guitar,

     In the 6 years we've been together, I never thought you would grow to mean so much to me. When I first saw you, I knew you were the perfect addition to my life. There were so many other guitars I could have chosen, but your dark-stained tiger maple surface caught my eye. I was excited to take you home and make music with you until the sun went down.

     Your hollow body and smooth curves fit so perfectly in my arms, and I cannot describe how amazing you look when the sun shines on your brilliant strings. When I played you for the first time, I was inexperienced, so I don’t blame you if you didn't enjoy it. But I admire you for bearing with me as I've learned more about you and how to take care of you.

     I've been through a lot in my life, both positive and negative. You were always there for me when I needed something to take my mind off of things. I remember when I got into an argument, I went into my room feeling angry and upset. Then, I picked you up and the gentleness of your tone took my heart to a more peaceful place. Your sweet melodies always comfort me and help my mind to dwell on better things.

     I enjoy the late nights we spend together, perfecting songs until my fingers are sore. I love falling asleep with the sound of your soothing melodies filling my mind, and waking up to the sight of you hanging on my bedroom wall. I love the different voices you have; gentle when I need them to be, loud and playful when I feel energetic. You express my feelings in ways that I never could on my own. I will always remember the fun we've had together and hope to have you in my life for all time.

I will cherish you forever,
Katie Skarr

"I wish we could have came into each other's lives
at a better time for me."
Because that's how things work.
It's all about timing,
and you ran the clock.

*** alarm,
wake up call.
I didn't even take my shoes off.

You talk so loud but you never say a thing.
Just push me against car doors
in the parking lot outside your apartment
with the lamppost's reflection blurring
on the rain covered pavement,
a ***** mirror
smearing our shadows together.

I yell but you only answer
with the breath from your open mouth
as you kiss the frustration out of me—
suffocation.
Your tongue speaks a language
only I thought I knew.

Turns out she did, too.

The highest mountain rock falls to ripple
In the lowest fountain water
There is no time to stop,
For we are merely landfill fodder
Most burn the candle at both ends
To some that is very quick
Yet others have no ball of wax
They merely torch the wick
I do not say a Plain Jane life
Is a not stray in any manner
One could not make me trade my weird
Even if using a hammer
It is not that I am deranged
Rather it is that I will not conform
I refused to tear my fabric
To yield to any twisted norms
While the strange societal few
May only be fodder for the gristmill
We are lowly forceful water
Bringing highest mountains to rubble hills

I. I say your flesh won't
Be enough for me. You say
I can have your bones.

II. Don't let yourself think
For one second I don't know
Your whole, cursed structure.

III. The angle of your
Pinky finger is, frankly,
Not too promising.

IV. You fall and fall and
Fall and fall and fall and fall
And fall and then snap.

V. We say we're fragile.
The flesh, maybe. But the bone
Is god's own thumbtack.

VI. I wanna kiss your
Skull. Leap past all the dying
Stuff and touch the sea.

VII. Cartilage is a
Nasty, cowardly *****. But
Somehow I need it.

IIX. Break a bone for me.

Grey dress, moonlighting
You’re perched again on the rocks, balanced on the seam between the sidewalk and the street
You always burnt softly in the daylight
Your face is lit up like a distant star
Like years ago
Like humming breaths, sober and deep, that I fought to keep in
Like bodies pressed into rock
Like stories escaping your lips
We begged, but the endings never came

They thought you were the veins in the granite
The current in the lake
The light in the trees
All the things you’d curse when drunk
I knew you as the Goddess of Twilight
A profound emptiness at your disposal
To me, you were an eternity in longing
Lost in dark rooms and vacant houses
Sometimes you were an exercise in blindness
Other times, a chant
Thin and narrow
Just blood on the concrete
But most often you were the living one
The beating heart
We would count your lives on our fingers
You’d had fourteen and a half
In thirteen short years

Tonight you’re silent
Somewhere else
The day’s distant, far-off
Promising to drown you
Fiery asphalt informs you
That it should feel all too familiar
Yes, but this time you’re not here
Lingering halfway between going and gone
You’ve written your name on your cheek
For fear of forgetting
Heard a ten-year-old reciting fragments of stories the other day
Stories of a girl lost in dark rooms and vacant houses
A Goddess of Twilight
Blood on concrete
Stories of a girl with fourteen and a half lives
Stories with no ending

Oh, heaven always comes right when you’re leaving.
Sometimes you wonder why you bother to stay at all.

Gnawing, that’s what you do
All of you
Dogs teeth on a bone
Mauling
Tearing
Shredding
Razorsharp
Gleam in the eye of the night
Blood stained fangs
Sink into your heart
Rip it apart
Smile
Woman
I am man’s best friend.
Everywhere.
Can’t escape
These Hounds
Fur caked with the blood of
The wounded and dead
***** Depraved Heartless Creature
You live in the shadows
Licking your teeth waiting for prey
Because it is only meat you crave
And the smell of it makes you raw with power
You are not noble, not high, not to be trusted
How many  innocents have been betrayed
With your hollow words
The sudden flash of your knife
Your cold vicious stabbing
That says
I will love you over and over
With my dagger buried to its hilt while you cling
To my whisper
Until you trust nothing, believe nothing are nothing
You will be a rag doll of emptiness when I have taken
All from you.
And then my pack will come
pack after pack after pack
each like me
And you will be swallowed in the fury
Of my heartlessness
I am man’s best friend
And you are only
Woman