secrets

some secrets lie close to the skin

like a clinging camisole, warm and soft

and over my heart the ribbed fabric steps

right thread over left

lifting up towards the sky when I breathe--

my secrets

the sympathetic, poetic kind

the ones that beg to be released

so when I ask you what you think coffee feels like

when it's poured into a mug

or when I smile in the middle of a hug

It's my camisole secrets

clinging to me

some secrets sit between us as we take the train

they sit like a small, golden puppy

dozing like a tabby in the shape of a dog

and as the tracks wend their way around a curve, three things happen

simultaneously

first, the setting sun shines through the window

the window whose curtains I'd pushed aside to see the mountains

when you were asleep

second, the puppy blinks awake as if to give a yelp

but says nothing when her eyes

are caught in the patch of light resting

thickly on her small body

third, our hands both reach for her only to find themselves

and the arms that own them

in-between the watercolor wash of the sun,

the fur of the puppy

and against the other's wrist

some secrets are smiles and heartbeats

and pure coincidences

as the sunlight flickers and fades

when the train turns to the south

with our secrets

some secrets are letters

addressed to the future, to a mailbox

you didn't even know you owned yet

I take my time articulating these

until the ink of my ballpoint pen bleeds out

in slow, arthritic lines

and I'm out of ammunition

I pace with my secret

in my home, with the note, with the hope

that your ears are ready to hear it

stamped and sealed, I send it out

the address patches consisting only of imprints

no wonder the mailman misread it

I reink my pens as I wait for my secret to return

somehow enriched

but it only becomes bleached and bittered

the longer I tally

do I promise not to mail the next one out?

almost

these secrets

they're not mine, not really

they belong to the breeze and the listening ears in the trees

they belong to the people who care as much as I do

about how coffee feels when it's poured into a mug

about the space sun makes when it shines through a window

about what it means to write out a letter

and to embroider its envelope

never once have they been only mine

whether they are small, giggly thoughts

or gravestones behind my sleeping eyelids

I call them secrets

because their stillness is sacred

in the way they lie close to me,

and how they go before my eyes to meet

whoever it is sitting opposite me

recklessly opening windows and doors

for us to jump through

other times they are only

ladybugs in my brain

slowly scuttling in circles

trimming the hedges as they go

snipping the pieces that keep me from clarity

helping me wish that I hadn't sent the last secret out

almost

g.c.s