Lock and Key

In my dream I open my mouth wide and reach the key inside. I find the metal lock and nestle the key into the crooked gate. Turn and click. Something is happening. I can pull it out now. I have passed the test even though I don't know what is being tested. 

But as I pull the lock becomes bigger, lodges in my throat, fills the cavern of my mouth and presses my tongue deep into my jaw. My teeth ache. I am unable to breathe. With the lock in place none of this was happening. Can I put the lock back deep within, click it closed, breathe around the obstruction? I mean, at least I’m breathing, right? 

But no, now that I know its there I can’t go on living with this barrier to my full breath (breadth), my voice. I cannot swallow the imposition away. And so I pull. The lock tears at my cheeks and my lungs ache without air to nourish them, me. 

I pull.

I wake. The heaviness in my chest is still there. I gasp for breath and savor the coolness of the morning air running down my throat.  

I make a cup of tea, meditate (breath in, breath out) go to my desk, flip open my laptop.

Click and release, the screen flashes to life. The keyboard unlocks under my fingers and my voice pours out, pushes that dream lock out, over, gone.

Almost. 

It waits in the wings (under my desk, under my bed) for another morning when I say I am too busy to write (busy with what?), an evening when I claim I am too tired to use my voice (knowing the fatigue will let more truth pour forth), too wrapped up in taxes or paperwork or scheduling more Busy-ness to feel some sort of purpose. 

Without even knowing it I place the lock back into my head with each excuse. I am my own jailer, my keeper, but in my hand I hold the master key. With consciousness, one day, I will be awake enough to raise this hand holding my self-fashioned prison and throw both lock and key into the river. I will simply let the words flow and rust that metal into the riverbed, back into the earth, shards of metal and words flowing to the sea. 

Why

 not

 today.