Secrets

Secrets                   

By John W. Vander Velden

 

We all have secrets. 

Those things hidden away in dark corners.

We keep them in locked boxes

Within locked boxes,

Buried as deeply as we can.

Doing our best to eliminate their memory from our mind. 

But they remain

Ghosts from our past.

 

Among their many forms,

Embarrassment and guilt seem most common. 

Unknown to others, they hold us prisoner

With cold dark tentacles that reach from times long ago.

They threaten to leave some visible scar,

Marking us for all to see.

 

There are those best forgotten…

Moments from the past.

Clumsiness, bad choices, illnesses, and all the rest

Whose only power is what we give them.

 

Why do we fear them…Secrets? 

Are they not reminders of our humanness?

Has our dread detoured forward progress?

Though we grow out of our yesterdays,

Are we defined only by what we have dealt or done?

Have we forgotten,

That past’s actions do not describe present life?

 

We all have secrets,

That gnaw from the shadows.

Hidden failures left behind,

But not forgotten.

Secrets that retain power.

Release can only come by…

Dragging them, kicking and screaming,

From their dark places

Into the light!

 

For we all have…secrets

 

(203 Words)  4-20-2016