the guitarist

 

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when i met him his favourite colour was purple. 

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dear reader, the views have steadily inclined on one particular post, and day after day new people read or the familiar reread the final post of year three. i threatened on that post to write again about this particular person, and i'm not sure why it's taken me this long. that's a lie. my eyes were waiting for the sun- waiting for the reminder of summer months now past and dead. 

recently i've gotten the feeling that i'm really not well liked, especially with the retreating of several folks and the words of long-known parties. maybe this is justified, i don't know. maybe i have earned the hatred from you all. i don't know. sorry if i have. i don't really know what else to say to you all, if you're reading and this applies then know that i spend many a night at the foot of the bed, elbows supporting a heavy chin, begging to be a different kind of me. sorry if i'm rude. i don't mean to be. please do tell me, if you want. i'd love to change. really.

i owe a bigger apology, though, even though he won't read this. and he shouldn't really, you know? we're past this now. but i should've written it a while ago.

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out of everyone i've ever met, he plays guitar the best. since his departure i've thought this over again and again- i always believed it to be a technical proficiency gifted to him by the general Gods that made his craft so superlatively. the truth is he would spend six hours a day everyday perfecting it. "tone is in the fingers" he would say, accompanied with a smirk and a hefty blues lick. he would change his strings often and took great care when he did. he changed mine several times, too. he would polish the bodies until they glistened. he hated maple fretboards.

monogamy was not something i sought when i first arrived at university, and i enjoyed my time with a plethora of people with nice faces, nice bodies, etc. i wore corsets back then. they made my tits look good; bigger than what was real. at eighteen the need to be loved is huge, or at least it was for me, and so when he came along and persisted, i let him. i liked him because he was pure- he has this childlike quality that's incredibly earnest, and when he decides he wants something then he works his ass off to get it. he used to laugh at most things, and he had passion for things many don't.

i've been listening to the 1975 more than usual, even branching out from my typically repeated tracks onto the more niche b-sides, one in particular being called Medicine. i never realised it, but the lyrics are directly referenced in his own version "cottage song" for me. i told him i thought his voice was too airy, and i should've been shot on site just for that. yeah it was lovely actually. on the bus this morning i put Medicine through my headphones and enjoyed the suns rays permeating my thinning skin. he sat a few seats behind me and i nearly heaved on his familiar scent; i smelt it the rest of the day in the breeze and in the air. the smell of a past life of baking and the harbour side and a boy who really really loved me.

on my nineteenth birthday i wore a wig to cover my sparse head, and i worked a fourteen hour shift. brutal. my eyeliner had never run so thickly down my face as it did that day, and my celebratory cake was not a cake but instead pasta that i had to pay for. every time i would serve a table i would grit my teeth and bare it but it happened to be somebody else's birthday meal and we all sang for them. and i cried. and when the clock struck twelve to end it, he made sure to tell the DJ my favourite song. and i folded into him and i was ever so grateful. there's so many things like that. anecdote after anecdote i could list that would prove him to be prince charming even with hair aside. and just so you know, absolutely none of this is romanticised.

he followed me everywhere, and i loved my new shadow. to say that i got Stockholm Syndrome would very much be a lie. and to say that i was a different person would be, too. he did everything for me. we spent most of the time incredibly happy, and we learnt about each other slowly. it was a soft and gentle two years, and he even saved my life one night. a few nights, actually. 

when my mum got sick it was horrific. i don't talk about it now, and won't. it must've been fucking frightening for her to go through and i'm not about to start telling the world. it aged me in a way i can't even tell you, reader, and i feel weathered because of it. of course, at the time i put all my energy into her and making sure she was alright and would come out of it. maybe it takes a horrendous situation like that to make you really understand a person, and of course everybody responds differently but to be totally and completely honest i found it hard to come back to him after that. we had different views on the situation and for the months that followed i tried to understand his opinion but i just couldn't. 

if i see him walking by i have to fight the overwhelming urge to run over, embrace him and sob into his shoulder, as that was where i would always do it. whenever i play guitar now, because i do play now, i am reminded of him in the harmonics. i've been practicing learning by ear and i let my strings rust. i sold my guitar with the maple fretboard, exchanged it for keys.

when i met him, his favourite colour was purple. i don't know what it is now. this is a better testament to him than the other post. because i loved him very very much. and i'm very very sorry. 

sincerely, the caravan girl.