Those Keys

I found an old key

In a weathered box

Buried underneath the seats 

and watch it stop

I held it like a secret

I could still return to

Though I swore that house was somewhere I was through

Funny how a little piece of metal can remain

Long after all the doors and walls have changed

I kept it close for comfort all these years

Like proof the past could still be reached from here

But that house is gone now

Torn down board by board

And this key ain’t a key anymore

Still I turn it in my fingers

Like it might unlock before

Some forgotten version

Of the life I knew before

And a quiet sadness follows me around

Dragging heavy footsteps through this town

Waiting for the day it finally disappears

Like every name and every voice I used to hear

Yeah, that house is gone now

My mother and my father

Live somewhere in that age

Along with all the little things

That time won’t let me say

Grandma’s kitchen

Grandpa’s chair

Ghost of laughter hanging in the air

And the older that I get

The more I understand

Nothing’s ever really ours

To keep in hand

We just borrow moments

Shining briefly in the light

Before they fade like silhouettes at night

And the future yawns open wide

Like a dark road at the edge of town

Swallowing every living thing

Until even memory breaks down

One day someone will hold what’s left of me

A photograph

A name

A melody

And there’ll be no key left anywhere

That could ever bring me back from there

That house is gone now

Nothing’s where it was before

And this key ain’t a key anymore

Still I hold it like a prayer

Like a hand against the door

Of every love and every loss

I can’t return to anymore

And that quiet sadness still follows me around, but tonight I hear its footsteps slowing down

😌