What can’t be said aloud
or even blown into an envelope
placed in a bottle and set to sea
or kept beneath your pillow in diary
those words and feelings without words cannot
find a place of expression
for a multitude of reasons or just one
you carry them around like a weight
dripping from your neck
sometimes in a weak moment
you feel yourself urging to spill
the bunting and string it high
confidences for everyone to see
what’s the worst that could happen?
and yet, you know, the worst
is bad enough to keep
you quiet
how many others, you wonder
carry their own list of unmentionables
and what would they be?
any in common or always unique?
if you let someone know
the sum of you
would they
grow bored?
become disgusted?
smile and say ‘i understand’
when they did not?
who can understand the deep of us?
where we dare not venture, let alone another
what permissions given and retracted
exist?
like the long necked lillies that spring
miraculously from dry texan ground
after it has rained and
the electric mist has caused wonder
to touch the barren
perhaps it is a sign when
you can talk of such things
late into the night
with a stranger you will never
meet again
or that you whisper to yourself
the varied outcomes of confession
strung on a tree, lighting dark road
no, sometimes it is best
we model our forefathers and mothers
who knew what to keep to themselves
for years they held them in jars
turning to the light once in a while
and when they died, sometimes you would find
one survived the cull
and everyone would hush and hold their breaths
in inky silence
not sure of how to respond
somehow a secret after you are gone
doesn’t hold the same concern
and maybe they were free of them
in that hour
when all who knew, discovered
they had not
known them at all