I’ve always loved old keys.

The idea that there is something out there- just out of my

reach waiting to be discovered, only still locked away. I used to collect them and my
parents would gift them to me, for birthdays or christmases. Keys from different
centuries, with different inscriptions or details. I'd hold the cold metal in my palm and
make up stories of where the keys have been. What I could become if I only went
searching for it.
There’s something about keys that feel so human. They hold a secret from someone
before me, a hidden message of a life I’ll never know. I want to know them all. I would
love to sit with every person I’ve collected a stamp from, an old postcard from Italy, an
old key to a long lost jewelry box. I want to learn their names, their fears and how much
they loved. I want to know everything about everyone. One key in particular was passed
down in my family, and I like to think it holds all the secrets and power I could ever
need. I don’t care if I'm too old to believe in magic, there is so much magic in mystery,
and there is so much mystery everywhere you look. Ff you choose to look. When I was
younger I would imagine these keys would lead me to mystical worlds in the back of my
closet, or in the locked room in the basement. I thought I could find some escape from
the mundane and the prosaic, and the promise of possibility was enough to sustain me.
Now I find myself seeing these small and insignificant parts of people's lives as cracks in
the pavement, leading up to me. But the most magical thing of all, is that somewhere out
there, there is a girl holding a box that belongs to the key I keep on my bedside table, or
on a string around my neck. I am so connected to someone I will never get to know.
Life can be such an isolating experience, when you live in your room. I guess I find a
sort of connection in collection. I am never really alone when I am a part of something
so much bigger than myself. There is so much out there, if I could only leave this room.
There is something so beautiful about discarded things. This key opened a door once,
that postcard was handwritten and the sketches drawn along the side were made with
love. Maybe they kissed the envelope, I always do. At the end of the day, I don't think I
want to know what these keys open, all the things I could be. The imagination is infinite,
and it is what keeps me alive. I hope when they lay my body into the ground, and I am
no longer here to wonder and imagine and yearn, someone finds my keys in a thrift
store, the postcards I send to my friends, the initials on my wall.