siobhan's stratocaster

baby three years ago
I stared straight back
at sentimentality
that played on 11 gauge strings
just a little too heavy for my soul;

promised you that I'd honor
your memory with tendonitis

but I have moments
where I tire of
walking hand in hand with nostalgia

and I wish you could lift my spirits
with lighter cares and optimism
in the same way you'd kiss my eyelashes to sleep

your ghost reincarnated

I sat shotgun
in a country western so nostalgic
I can hear your boots click
down the gilded road
towards southern hospitality

but our paperback romance
don't need no pick up line

because I fell head over heels
into the back of your truck
while counting the shooting
stars in your eyes

and years have passed since
we sat under those arches,
letting gauzy smoke trail behind our lives

but you left your carcinogens
in my lungs like the hope for redemption
the second time around

stratacoustic

it has been two years since I ran my hands
past your body, and I have moments where I
can still feel your rusted guitar chords
underneath calloused fingers
like muscle memory

but unlike you,
I have resigned myself to a minor fate;
scaling up my defenses suspended between
stainless steel marionette strings
and maple backbones

and I can still feel your solos
sending sound waves through my soul
as if my past could amplify
the hollowness in our touch