The Key in the Blue Dish

[Verse 1]
Our key lives in a blue ceramic dish,
next to the receipt for the lamp you picked.
I know which stair complains when you come home;
I love that stupid sound. I also want
some door whose number I don't know by heart.

[Pre-Chorus]
At lunch I buy the pastry with the salt
and eat it standing up beside the sink.
For seven minutes, nothing needs my answer.
Then I bring you half, because I mean it.

[Chorus]
I want to keep this key warm in my pocket,
want every lock in town to call me by a different name.
I’m grateful when your hand finds mine at breakfast;
I resent the spoon, the clock, the same old frame.
If I leave, I lose the room where I am loved.
If I stay, I keep inventing doors.

[Verse 2]
I order boots, then watch the tracking dot
cross counties I have never bothered with.
They fit like someone else’s good decision.
You laugh; I spend the saved return on dinner.
The waiter knows our usual. I like him.

[Bridge]
Sometimes I flirt with a life in a hotel bar,
not even a person—just the unclaimed hour.
I come back holding gum and your favorite pears,
small offerings from the version who went out.

[Final Chorus]
I want to keep this key warm in my pocket,
want every lock in town to call me by a different name.
You’re humming while you rinse the cups; I’m happy.
I’m bored enough to price a train I won’t take.
If I leave, I lose the room where I am loved.
If I stay, the key keeps changing shape.
[Outro]
I set it by the blue dish.
I don’t put it down.