I need a writing group. A small one. Is a duo — myself and one other — considered a group? Yes. The definition says it can be. It’s just that too many voices, too many ideas, too many personalities dampen intimacy. And I need intimacy.
I need to hand someone my key willingly and say, Here. Take this. I trust you not to hurt me.
And then they do. Because they will.
I’m protective of my key. Maybe too protective, I’m tempted to say — and also maybe not protective enough. Some people feel safe at first. I reach my hand inside, and sharp metal teeth clamp down around my wrist.
I want to stop blogging altogether, throw my key into the deepest part of the ocean, let it corrode alongside the Titanic’s mast. Maybe then I could have some peace.
It’s safe on the ocean floor — silt layering over it, embedding it into the amoeba-like bed below. How supported my key feels there, or maybe how supported I would feel.
With it there, I imagine myself walking with a hitch in my step, like a toy soldier with pep — a whimsical freedom breathing in the warmth of the day. I darken, and I brighten. I feel the aperture of my Levolor blinds twist and turn. Love erupts with the power of a thousand suns, only to be incinerated by it.
It isn’t hate I feel. It’s deadness. A deadening of a part of me. It shrugs its shoulders, crawls back up, and hangs itself on the nail in the wall.
I am both.
I am all of it.
The key.
The sun.
And the dead.
Going On 40 