By Gordan Struić
He hadn’t touched his guitar in days.
It waited for him by the couch, three strings tuned, three forgotten. When he finally picked it up, it felt heavier than he remembered. Dust had settled into the curve of the wood. It smelled of lemon oil and something old — something he couldn’t name.
He played two chords.
Then one finger missed.
Then another.
And then came the sound.
The kind that makes your bones feel misaligned. Not because of volume, but because it’s a sound your body was never meant to hear.
A string caught somewhere between G and pain.
He once told Barbara that guitars remember things — the way fingers press into frets, the way you breathe out before a verse.
She laughed and said that was projection.
“You remember things,” she told him. “That poor guitar’s just trying not to fall apart.”
She smelled like rosemary and ironed linen.
Barbara left on a Wednesday. No slammed door. No scream.
Just a bag packed while he was tuning the low E string.
When he noticed she was gone, he kept tuning.
Then made tea he didn’t drink. Just held the cup until it cooled.
He didn’t write that day.
Or the next.
Only listened — to the hum inside the wood.
Anna came after.
She never asked about Barbara. She didn’t have to.
She played the piano. Quietly.
He fell in love with the way her left hand moved.
She had a chipped pinkie nail and hummed when she was nervous.
When Anna left, she didn’t pack a bag.
She just stopped showing up.
He checked his phone for three days
Before realizing he was waiting for silence.
The guitar didn’t complain.
It never does.
But it always remembers.
He once read that if you put a frog in boiling water, it jumps out.
But if you heat the water slowly, it stays.
Until it’s cooked.
He wasn’t sure if he was the frog.
Or the pot.
Or the rising heat.
Or maybe the one turning the dial.
He tried writing a new song.
The words wouldn’t come.
Only the shape of words. Echoes.
The smell of Barbara’s shampoo.
The way Anna used to hum Clair de Lune without realizing.
His own name, said aloud, sounded like someone else.
The tuning pegs wouldn’t move.
He twisted harder.
One string snapped.
He stared at it for a while.
Then laughed.
Not the funny kind —
The kind you make when the last part of you snaps,
And even you’re surprised there was still something left to break.
He picked up the broken string, cut his finger,
And pressed the drop of blood onto the soundboard.
“Now you remember me,” he whispered.
The guitar said nothing.
Of course it didn’t.
It never does.
Not until he plays.
And he couldn’t.
Not that night.
He thought about the frog again.
Maybe it never felt the heat.
Maybe it just mistook it
For love.
* * *
Gordan Struić is a Croatian poet and writer whose work explores memory, silence, and the fragile spaces between people. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Beyond Words, 34th Parallel, Voidspace, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Prosetrics Magazine, and others.