Keys That Don’t Fit Anymore

I keep a ring of metal moons that never learned my sky,

a jangle of old alphabets that no more doors reply.

They’re fossils of before-times, love—of locks we used to share,

now teeth that bite at empty air and find no welcome there.

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This one was for your stairwell light, for late returns and rain,

for tiptoed, 3 a.m. arrivals, shoes in hand, half-sane.

It knew the cough your doorknob made, the creak of loyal floors—

Now it’s a constellation lost, far from its native doors.

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Another fits a mailbox slot where hope once came in white,

where holidays were envelopes, not silence dressed as night.

It rattles at a rusted throat, a building changed, sold on—

No slot, no names, just “Residents”—our separate futures drawn.

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My favorite was the smallest one, for drawers that kept our plans:

the lease, the rings we almost bought, the sketched-out foreign lands.

It used to open paper dreams like curtains on a stage;

Now every blueprint curls itself and steps off of the page.

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The locksmith in my chest has tried to file these edges down,

to grind regret to kinder shapes, to smooth the scream to brown.

But metal keeps its memory of every turn and twist;

A key that doesn’t fit a lock still knows the rooms you missed.

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I’ve been a house with borrowed doors, with knobs that weren’t my size,

a hallway hung with stranger frames, dim bulbs of borrowed skies.

I used to think that growing up meant finding “perfect” keys—

Now I suspect it’s learning how to build without them, please.

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So here’s what I will do with all these teeth that lost their bite:

I’ll hang them by the window where they’ll tremble into light.

A wind chime made of used-to-be, of “us” and “not-us” lore—

Let rust and music honor keys that don’t fit anymore.

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And when a new lock finds my hand with tumblers yet unknown,

I’ll match it not to what I kept, but to the heart I’ve grown.

For I am more than what I’ve lost outside abandoned doors—

I am the home I carry now that doesn’t need those keys no more.