It lay shattered on the floor, small flakes of wood connected only by the long chords that I had cherished under my fingers.

It had been my only sanctuary when everyone else seemed to want me dead, its mellow chords echoing into the corners of my room and making it all seem lighter.

It had always been in the peripheral of my vision just as the steel of the knife would touch the thin and sensitive skin of my wrist, stopping me in my act of self-pity and saving me from the dark parts of my mind.

It had played with me in front of 200 people, who laughed and cheered and made me feel that all the times I had practiced into the early hours of the morning had really been worth it.

Fifteen years of memory with this one beautiful instrument shattered in fifteen seconds.

He hadn’t meant to do it. He had been caught up in the moment and thrown my precious memories into the wall and now I lay near its deathbed sobbing, wishing that I had gone first, and wondering how I could live without my savior: my guitar.