The Key

She

                        Lies awake barely breathing

                        waiting for his return

                        but he never arrives

                        to unlock her soul and he

doesn’t

                        look at her the way he used to.

                        He used to pick her brain like a locksmith.

                        He used to

need

                        her, and now he does not.

                        Yet here she waits, for now.

                        He was once the one she valued most.

                        Now she values herself. It was never

him

                        she needed. She is valuable.

                        She is the skeleton key.