Secrets

Secrets dance on our tongues just waiting to leap into the world

We sit across from each other at the table. The restaurant hustle and bustle has faded as we look at each other with saddened, tired eyes. I wonder where the love has gone, we used to be so full of it. Was it the kids, the bills, the routine? What killed our affection, our intimacy? I think I know, though I don’t feel safe to speak of it. Secrets. We have them. Maybe my secret is the destructive one, in fact I know it is. I’m sure you have secrets too, but if you do, you’ve hid them well. I don’t blame you, my secret has been killing me and also keeping me alive for a long time. Decades in fact.

The thing about about a secret is that it can’t stay a secret forever. Very rare is the secret that stays itself forever. Once a secret is shared, it’s really just out of its own control at that point. Secrets yearn to be shared. They burn in our bellies and control our emotions. Secrets dance on our tongues just waiting to leap into the world.

The thing with my secret is that you know it and have asked me to keep it a secret. I have violated your trust, for my secret could not stay a secret forever. When everything that I am is a secret, the air becomes heavier to breathe, the taste of food becomes a little bit duller, the sparkle in my eyes begins to fade. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it, secrets are my whole experience.

I have shared my secret with others. I have violated your trust, broken your promise. My secret simply can’t be contained. In retrospect, it started with you. I never meant for you to find out the way that you did, but it could not be helped. When a secret is as large as mine, it has its own ways of escaping its prison. A hint here, a whisper there, and each secret gets closer to freedom, to its own demise. Secrets are the most suicidal beings in existence. Once a secret is out, it morphs into something else entirely. Secrets become truth.

In actuality, secrets are truths all along, but are repressed and held down due to human instincts. All people have needs: to be loved, to exist, to pursue happiness. Secrets are both a tool for humans to fulfill these needs, and sometimes an impediment to satisfying these needs. Secrets let us explore our wants and desires without judgement from our friends and family. They are a vehicle for finding passion, for relieving pain, for avoiding shame. Secrets protect us from public consequences. They are an external shield for those who have them.

Internally, secrets like to eat. Secrets are hungry and will eat away at a person’s emotions. Some secrets are smaller, less hungry than others. These are more easily kept down. A drunken kiss at the office Christmas party when your spouse was at home, a sexy dream about your younger neighbor, memories of stealing candy from the convenience store when you were a child. These secrets can often turn into fun memories, able to be swallowed and locked away forever. The bigger a secret is though, the bigger teeth it has. A steamy affair, a criminal side operation, sometimes even a whole identity can be a secret.