I think that to try and explain this one in anything other than the broadest terms would be to belabour the point. Suffice it to say that there are very negative, toxic emotions that we often carry around within us, even when every logical instinct tells us that it would be far healthier if we just simply let it go…

(waits patiently as the reader rids themselves of certain earworms they were just infected with)

It’s even more difficult sometimes, if you find yourself desperately holding on to that one, small, precious thing…

In my case, as I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, one of those small, precious things is my guitar, especially since it’s been of great comfort to me in these days of the Covid-19 Plague. I’ve also mentioned that I’ve named her Devotchka, and that she’s actually the only positive thing that I still have left of one of the most toxic relationships I have ever had…
A relationship with someone, who left me with the supremely passive-aggressive sneer of: “Have a Nice Life.”
Of course, in this day and age, the natural tendency is that a statement like that is always richly-deserved by the one, whom it is directed toward… So, if it pleases folks to feel the same way about me, that is certainly their right.

Perhaps it is just pettiness, or perhaps it might be some genuine exorcism-of-ghosts, when I find that I am able to mentally echo that sneer with a far more neutral (but just as genuinely Canadian Passive-Aggressive): “Indeed, my dear, and I likewise hope that your own life is treating you well." (and I will studiously ignore any and all rumours-to-the-contrary)

Finally, to those, who might accuse me of misogyny with this piece, I assure you that the antipathy I have expressed within it is far, far wider and broader in scope. If you’re going to excoriate me for something, I feel you should at least directed it at the places, where it is far more deserved, such as the far more all-encompassing misanthropy of this piece.
In the case of the aforementioned, failed relationship, I ultimately had the far deeper issue with them as a living being, than with their gender, and they likewise, with me as a person.

So, maybe “healing” is that day, where you find you no longer even care if you were wrong and they were right, or the other way around in varying degrees and percentages of either. If the price for never having to think of them again, other than the few good memories you’d like to keep, is that you’re obliged to declare that you were wrong… Well, I’d say that’s a price worth paying.

So, perhaps Devotchka was once given as a gift…
Perhaps.
Or, perhaps she was given as an unspoken obligation, even if that obligation was applied retroactively.
Well, if this piece says nothing else,
you can say it’s my supremely misanthropic,
genuine Canadian Passive-Aggressive
way of announcing

that I now consider
whatever obligation might have once existed,
and which has clouded the ultimate nature
of the ‘gift’ that I once received,
is now paid in full.

Therefore,
I shall no longer play her
with thoughts clouded by fear,
shame, regret,
or even anger,
no matter how justified.