in the beginning was the sound
and the sound was good;
i licked it.

by CHRISTINE VALENTIN-BATI

i started learning guitar in 2023 and had to say goodbye to having long womanly nails. 

My progress got stunted because of how much time I spent away from Chicago in 2025 (I was unemployed). When I came back I struggled to hold down barre chords but my guitar teacher said I had the perfect fretting hands. And not even in a creepy way. 

*

we may all pine for womanly nails

and a perfect womanly voice that does not push out two sounds (one strong voice and too much air leaving my belly). 

I let out an incorrect pitch today and my voice teacher made a buzzer sound to indicate it was wrong. I didn’t feel bad or self-conscious but I wonder how much I’m learning. I feel lost in a lot of the lessons trying to figure out the shapes she’s making and after hurting my hip this summer my cardiovascular system went so downhill, I’m constantly out of breath.

*

an incorrect pitch means breath leaving my body is buzzer sound so imperfect i feel lost

I’m reconciling with the fact that I may never have a nice voice. I’m learning sound shapes very slowing like some clumsy toddler. Circle into the square. I went to grad school trying to escape the sort of capitalism that led me to seeing the same wall; having the same conversation of the weather; the day of the week; and pay roll; and I wished to study poetry where everything was how I felt how I saw how I desired.

*

how i saw and desired and felt i wish to transform into poetry everything of myself

seeing the same beige wall of my 3rd floor room in my first apartment in Chicago where the sun came through in the morning and sunset tinted the air orange I felt the most in love with the world during this time which was only partially the result of a newfound relationship and mainly because of the many platonic relationships I had sprawled with as many legs as a spider

*

so sprawled like a spider my legs desired to be felt by the sun 

and I wished my body tinted orange like I had taken in so much light I was going to explode a sunset come morning through a familiar window I want to feel like my old self which was knees to chest watching smoke come off the chimney so I suppose this is why I started learning music to begin with

having felt the written language, my old relationships had failed me and I was trying to be salvaged by the roundness of sound which we can all relate to either through a cry or hum or yelp