Dear Red,

Where do I start? Where did we start? How far have we come from being boxed up to being the birthplace of lyrics and the deepest of thoughts? How many tears have you seen me cry, how many times has your shoulder been dampened by them? By me. How many spurts of anger have you had to encounter, with the consequences of broken chords and out of tune voices? And how many words- exactly- have you counted from my tongue, because you gave me the motivation to do far more than just speak my emotions. How many times have we laughed, laughed at the old love that we knew so well and heard the lyrics, the sweet lyrics turn to bitter meaning, and the love turn to hate. How many years have we been seeing out? How many people have we met? How many sorrows have we sang together? And how much dust have you gathered in my place?

There is nothing like the bond between a fair human being and bits of dead wood, and horsetail put together, because that’s all you are. Dead. But somehow, when we sing, when our voices entwine like the strings your vocal chords come from, you’re alive. We become a harmony, a team, much like a writer and a pen, much more than an artist and their paintbrush. It is an unexplainable phenomenon when we create a world that only we know so fondly of. There is no greater sound than the one where our chords move in unison. From the curves of your body, to the strings of your emotion, which shine a metallic red, Copper is what others may see, but all I know is that you shine golden to me.

I see myself in you, not just by reflection, no, but your ways that only I seem to know, I used to think long ago that wooden objects surely couldn’t have a soul, but now I realise that you share mine. I realise that you share everything with me, my thoughts, my emotions, my love, my room, my voice, we are truly entwined and wrapped around the same peg, defiantly in tune with each other. You weren’t my first and won’t be my last, but I’ll always remember you as the one I shared everything with, my childhood, and my past. You’ve heard more about me even when you don’t have ears, you’ve seen the person I’ve become and you don’t have eyes to prove it, you’ve spoken to me in times of anxiety, you don’t even have to have a mouth. In times of pure loneliness, you were there, with no arms to hold me and no warmth to warm me. But it was your songs, they played in my head, we brought them to life, even though you are dead.

I should say thank you, even though you aren’t listening, but I’ll say it anyway, since we share the same soul, if I say it to you, then I say it myself. So here, here’s to many more heartbreaks to write about, here’s to many more rooms to fill with people and music, here’s to the many years ahead, and here’s to us, here’s to you. Red.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTYmp9H-WyE