Pisces - "Keyhole." | October 28, 2022

Her fingers crossed like wires through a different dimension, fumbling through tarnished brass keys with an internal clock that ticked like a pet peeve. Her breath was drunk with panic. Clammy skin on her cheeks were framed by golden brown hair that dangled from her flaking scalp like thousands of dead vines grown from the corpse of human flesh. The brass keys jangled together between her anorexic fingers, louder than her whispers could ever be.


“Please, please.” The keys dropped on the metal floor as she scurried to pick them back up, a tear dissolved into the peach fuzz on her cheek like many before that one. “Please,” she whispered again.


The hole inside of her chest could home a thousand roaches. Breast plate caved in and forced to the side, exposing a slowly beating heart on what seemed like its last lifeline. The girl’s legs trembled. Her toes tried to grip the chilled floor as she picked a key from the dangling chain. She shifted closer to the mirror on the peeling wallpaper decorated by burnt flowers and pale ladybugs. Her milky skin like a frosted window, golden vines sticking to the tears on her face, she got close enough to be able to see the keyhole inside of her heart through her reflection. Her hand trembled like a leaf in October as she stuck another key in the hole of her heart like the nine keys before it. She twisted and turned, blood drained from her heart, recycling itself inside her caved chest and back into her body to be utilized again. She let out a blood curdling wail, the key clicking in the flesh of her heart. A rugged voice behind her, spoke softly in a questionable tone.


“Try this one.” The girl turned around frantically and dropped the key to the floor.  A boy. A boy her age, maybe a little older. His chest held a million stitches with purple veins running through his breasts like poisoned rivers in a desolate place.


He approached the girl without a twitch, hand steady holding the key to what felt like the desperation for freedom. He embraced her closely, kissed her with the strength of a thousand lies and twisted the key with barely an effort into her forsaken heart. She dropped to the floor like a bag of bricks. The boy knelt down and watched her chest secure shut on its very own, thousands of little stitches creating themselves like cells regenerating life. He kissed the girl’s forehead and smiled.


“Silly girl, you’ve been looking in the wrong place.”