Don't Tell

I have secrets.

Some of them I could care less if you knew. That's what makes a secret so interesting; the fact that it's yours, and yours alone, and no one else is aware of what you hold inside.

It's not a secret if it's something shared between two people. There's always the temptation to cut out the other person; there's always the "what if" of knowing that person could share the secret with others, thereby negating the secrecy of it. Causing possible harm to those previously unaware of the secret.

A secret.

Something that must be known by no one personally you know.

I think a secret could be shared with an anonymous person, someone that might have experienced the event that caused that secret to come into being in the first place, that caused that secret to spread and bloom, to fester inside.

Someone that has the same secret as you, because that secret came about because of the two of you, but someone you will never walk paths with again, someone so anonymous, the risk of your secret getting back to you, or anyone you love, does not even exist.

Now. That's a secret.

I don't think I have any of those kinds of secrets. However, as I think about this, I do know others and the secrets they've shared, and there's always the risk that I could be the next sharer of that secret. Or you could share a secret you've sworn yourself to. In fact, I think if I wanted to, I could ruin a few marriages, a few lives with some of the secrets I have been made privy to. Not that I would ever do that, but doesn't that thought alone make you scared to spill your guts to a friend? That by sharing your secret, you put your life at risk of being completely ruined by the words from someone else's lips?

I can't imagine having to keep something so secret from my spouse that if he were to find out, it could wreck all the lives surrounding ours, including ours.

I can't imagine thinking every single day of my life, "What if so-and-so tells my secret and so-and-so finds out about it." How can a person live like that, knowing that such a secret is out there, waiting to spread its disease into all those you hold dear?

I think people sometimes with secrets like these convince themselves the events surrounding the secret didn't really occur and block it out of their memory, saying "Oh, that didn't really happen; it couldn't have happened. It never happened."

And they try to live a life with that secret in their souls, hidden down deep; trying to quiet that secret that wishes to erupt from the soul, to cleanse the soul, to become free from its tangles and barbed-wireness it possesses, constantly scratching, and tapping, and trying to get out of your soul. How can you clearly live freely and wholly with something that sacred, that secret stuck inside of you?

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