Best kept secrets

He has never asked "What’s wrong?" or "Are you okay?" As if he knows better. But he has said, "You can tell me anything.” And sometimes I want to believe that statement.

That I could tell him anything or everything. And that would somehow release all these little demons. They would go back to where they came from, or to where they now belong.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Unlocking their cages doesn’t set them free. If anything, it gives them permission to run about. In an explosion of emotion they shed their skins and are born anew. At least locked up, at least hidden in the dark, I know where they are and what they are doing.

And besides, it’s almost impossible to describe how the walls are closing in, how the sky is falling, how the world is running out of oxygen, but I manage to keep on breathing. As the past gets a little closer with every step I take away from it.

How every day is like an open drawbridge and I’m just waiting for the ship to pass.