Broken Strings of an Old Guitar

In the corner of my childhood room,

an old guitar leans like a secret—

dust-kissed, spine-cracked,

its once golden strings now rusted veins

that no longer hum.

I remember how it sang—

not just notes,

but every ache I dared not speak.

Each chord was a confession,

each strum, a heartbeat skipping

over things I didn’t know how to name.

Fingers once danced across frets

like lovers learning each other’s flaws.

Now the strings snap at my touch—

fragile threads,

too tired to hold the weight of memory.

It played my father’s laughter,

my mother’s lullabies,

my own trembling voice

before it cracked from trying to be heard.

We were a band of quiet pain,

our harmony unspoken.

I used to sit by the window,

letting the world in note by note.

The breeze would carry my chords

like prayer flags—

tattered but holy.

I believed music could fix what people couldn’t.

But the songs stopped one day.

The world grew louder,

and I fell silent.

Now, when I strum what’s left,

it moans—not a melody,

but a memory.

Not a song,

but an elegy.

Some strings are too worn to sing again.

But even silence remembers.

I keep the guitar anyway.

Like a photograph that doesn’t smile back.

Like a scar that still burns in winter.

Not for its sound,

but for what it gave me once—

a way to be seen

without having to explain.

One day, maybe,

I’ll restring it.

Not to recapture the past,

but to start a new song

with all the brokenness I’ve earned.