The key that still fits

Found it today in the pocket of a coat I haven’t worn in years. A prison gate key—rusted, bent at the tip, but still locks the same door it used to. I held it like a relic. Not because it worked, but because it didn’t need to. The weight of it, the way the teeth caught the light just so—it wasn’t about access anymore. It was about memory. I left it on the kitchen table. Let it sit there. Like a ghost with a job.