A Chance, A Lock, A Key

If I am the lock

Mayhap She is the key

Like Pandora of myth

Will she open, for good or ill,

This box in which I reside

If only but once the key is turned

If only but once I am not spurned

If only but once someone should care

Perhaps into a bettter tomorrow I shall fare

So here I sit, my feelings locked away

Here I sit, wondering, is today the day

Will she see me…, truly see

See the us that together we could be

My hands itch to reach out

My mouth yearns to scream, shout

My knees want upward to bend

My soul prays her soothing balm

My heart to mend

Just a glance at my yearning eyes

Just a whisper of an echo of my sighs

Locked herein they yet remain

Please turn the key

Else I may go insane

Perhaps should I approach

Perhaps I should the subject broach

Perhaps if I stood and looked her way

She would see my worth, my longing

Perhaps her own needs I could sway

Am I lost, locked in a prison of my own design?

Are there seams, cracks, my questing fingers could find?

Hurt in the past I have truly been

Yet those old pains are not her sin

Perhaps she sits there in a box of her own

Perhaps she sits there, not a queen on a throne

But perhaps, instead, she has a lock of her own

Perhaps I could be her key

To be Her solace, my key her I could loan

Pandora took a chance not knowing the outcome

She released onto this world much evil and pain

Yet hope too was contained therein

Hope for a better tomorrow for all

Hope that from our soul we may erase the stain

If we but hope

And act there upon

If we take a chance today

On the morrow may be a new sun

My box may be locked

But truly I am my own key

I stand from my corner

Brush away the hurts of yesteryear

Setting aside the old fear

Through the crowd I move

Alone, Silent, scared

A ghost of a chance in a crowd of lively success

There she sits, alone on the sidelines

A wallflower

Waiting to bloom

Well this wallflower may still be a man

Reaching her side, I hold out trembling hand

You look like you have a story

I see phantoms of yesterdays sorrowfully gone

Perhaps a dance

Just take a chance

Let’s share a moment together… An eon as two

Instead of quarantined infants

Inside this cosmic human zoo

As she looks up at me I see wary wonder

I see a fear to echo my own

Locked away, hidden, afraid to burst asunder

With quaking knees, shaking hands

I help her up from where she sits

As I lead her slowly to the dance floor

Outsiders ignored by the raucously swaying in-crowd

My heart loosens just a bit

Rust covered hinges shift a tad

My box a tiny bit looser

Just a crack of sunlight enters

As I take her fear damp palm in my own

She finally seeks my gaze

Wondering if perhaps I may know

The sorrow and pain she has felt

The horrific filth in which her psyche has knelt

By the end of the dance

I know she is the lighthouse

The beacon of hope

As she burns through my haze

My tiny beam of light

Brightens to a warmth tinged plight

Together we sway

Holding to one another

Each praying silently, internally

That this moment will last

That maybe we will somehow touch a soul

Just one other human soul

In a population vast

After the dance is over I see a ghost of a smile

At the edge of her trembling ruby lips

By the time the night is over

We each know the outline of the other’s story

Yes, I found my key

Within the bottomless depths of a storm tossed sea

As I have found her

As she found me

Our locks are broken

Our keys recast

Together we sail on to a future vast

Behind us we left the ashes

Of pain, hurt, agony, others

Ashes of memory

Upon which we build

A promise of tomorrow

All it took was enough care

To try to heal another’s sorrow

**************************************

Stay tuned for further installments. If you enjoy my writing, check out my author page at Amazon.com:

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Thanks for reading. :-)