Meet your candidate

Keys

I carry the weight of the world in my bag:
the keys to different locks,
rooms, doors, armarios, hearts -
all jangling inside the pockets
of my camel leather satchel
protesting at what I've become:
this shadow of a person who used to be open
before the world decided
that she needed to be put away
for fear of tainting the others,
for giving everything freely anyway.

In memory of a certain lotus who died unecessarily

Across the verandah