Guilt on Vinyl

by Heather Sherr

I owe my existence to the noodle-soup fog of March, for I was granted newfound vision through phone flashes. The steam of the shower stall swallowed me whole while I ignored my morning routine to stand still, my towel-wrapped body melting and oozing into my screen, anticipating his emoji-filled aphorisms. “Do you want to start a Spotify playlist?” A tractor beam focused on me through the haze and I cautiously accepted what would be, unbeknownst to him, his greatest charity project;

Humbly, his invisible hands guided me through hyperpopian electro-maximalisms, yearning sobs of rock alternativism, indie-pop that empties and refills my ventricles with bass riffs, and seemingly every song that will ever deserve a listen; he is my own personal Pitchfork, from garden tool to gospel, an all-knowing one, unaware of his omnipotence;

I hate feeling like his wasteland. He brings variety, sweet and salty popcorn excitement to me, who used to be the picture of naivete. Morphing into bittersweet weed vine, I coil around his legs and poison his senses with infantile ignorance and a culture-vulture aesthetic. He was a fool to open heaven’s sonical gates, for now the metal clangs behind him as they swing until being left ajar in dissonance;

Oh, to send him a song! But, if I did, it would be a regurgitation of his philanthropy, a sick distortion of his pink-sky disposition and multiplicity. I am a melody that is dreadfully familiar, with simple lyrics and GarageBand amateurism. He wants me to be as nuanced as he is, I know he does, but he’ll never say so.