FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 153

When you say that I keep secrets, you are right, I do – but the silence that I hide behind is the awful sound of shattering. I feel that if I were to cry that I would never stop – and you might drown beside me in that mammoth sea. Even the creakiest craft is better than that.

So much remains to show you – so many things to say – but there are things I cannot whisper, things you cannot see. Ugly things. Stupid things. Storms I can’t control.

So yes, I have chosen to obscure and exclude. Parry and prevent. Veil and veer around. Partly because I fear your appraisal. Mostly because I dread the tides.

I don’t want you to see because then I won’t have to look. Your knowing would be the end of my denial – and that is what keeps me afloat. I know this is a tinder castle, ready for the fire; but these slender, matchstick walls are the difference between what we have left and what we will surely lose.

Knowledge isn’t always power – and the truth is often a bully. There is a price for everything it seems – so I pay a toll in shadows to keep the light alive.

You can force it out of me if you wish. Most likely I will yield. The question is: are you prepared to wager what you have for what you think you might receive? Perhaps the value of a secret is in its keeping – not its revealing.