Blues

my new guitar, a very chilled cat and a photograph by Marie

What color guitar you want? he asked.  You have a selection? I ask, thinking that pawn shops only carry pawned stuff - right? Not a selection of brand new guitars. We're a corporate pawn shop, he tells me, we got lots of stores all over Manhattan. We got piles of these guitars downstairs. What color you want? We got red, green, blue--
Blue I say. Blue. He leaves and returns with a blue guitar. I look outside at a 125th Street and contemplate the idea that pawn shops got brand new guitars in the middle of Harlem. It's a toy guitar, but it'll do. My grandfather built guitars, so I know you can get any guitar to sound good. You just have to know how to play it. So I got blue. I go home to find out what color chakra blue is. It's the throat chakra. It's speaking your truth. It's about expression.
A corporate pawn shop he said. In the middle of Harlem. We got tons of them, he told me. What color do you want?