Key my Mouth

I often find myself putting keys in my mouth, tasting their metallic flavor. They say every key fits a lock, but the same is true for mouths—no one ever mentions it. In a way, I am much like a key, waiting to fit into a lock or be devoured by a mouth.

I tried once to swallow a key whole, thinking it might unlock something inside me—maybe a hidden door or the tools to function socially. But instead, it lodged in my throat as if to outline the stubbornness of my despair.
When I think about it, what I want most in this world is to be swallowed whole, but my biggest fear is that I might one day be vomited up like some old chewed-up newspaper that a mad dog ate on a sunny afternoon.

Dreadfully, I picture myself fetal and naked in a pool of vomit—unloved and unwanted, discarded and disabused of my delusions of being truly digested.
I’ve wondered if being swallowed whole might be the only way to escape this persistent feeling of being chewed up and spat out.

Day in and day out, the silence and time chew away at my features. The saliva of the universe is like an acid, stripping away layers of innocence, absolutely disintegrating my sense of self-worth. Like a key left in the corner of an antique shop, I’m going to be thrown away the moment I’m noticed.

Wynabazel Gwyndledore