Poetry Month Day 22: Secrets I refuse to take to my grave.

I've been reading this weekly blog at postsecret.com for some time now, watching the list of cities where the owner will be speaking and showing his collection, and saw where he'd be speaking an hour and a half from me recently. I had to go. I got a speeding ticket on the way there, got into the speech a half hour late, but it was worth it. It's an amazing project. People there got up to share their secrets as well, and I know I'm not the only sap who ended up crying. The idea that people will take certain things to their grave is tragic. Today's poem will be secrets I refuse to take to my grave. Please forgive me.

Me and Frank:


Secrets I will not take to my grave:

My first kiss was my little sister. My cousin
made me believe I'd been raped as a child.
I still can't forgive my uncle for the way he treated my teddy bear
when I believed it was alive. I still wish my teddy bear was alive.
I don't know if I prefer to date men or women, but
refuse to call myself bisexual. I knew before I married him
that someday I'd ask him to leave me.

If I know in advance that I'm just the other woman,
we'll be okay, but God help you if you hide it. I don't know
if I believe in God, but I do believe in magic. I feel I'm superior
to other people just because I'm intelligent, billingual,
and well-traveled. I think voting makes me hotter. But at twenty-five,
I still don't know how to take a compliment, and if you tell me you think
I'm beautiful, I'll wonder what you really want from me.

I thought I was afraid of abandonment, but as it happens
I'm really just afraid of allowing myself to become vulnerable.
I may be thin, but I still eat my pain. I use my dog to make me
feel better. I use alcohol to make myself feel better. I use sex
to feel better. I believe in ghosts because I believe I've seen five.
My left breast is bigger than my right one and

I have dimples on my butt. I judge people with poor grammar;
I judge people with poor teeth. Sometimes when I'm tired of
eating my pain, I spend it instead. I like to go to movies by myself
for two reasons: One, I like movies, and Two, I want people to
see me and feel like they could go to movies by themselves. I'm glad

crack kills. I can hold a grudge like a sponge can hold water:
it's the one thing I learned from my mother after what type of woman
not to become. I wish my mom had died when I was a child,
so instead of knowing she's alive but doesn't care I could imagine
she was loving me from heaven. I like to climb on top
of abandoned buildings to think because the air is more clear
that close to God, whether or not she exists, and some of the
happiest moments of my life happened on those rooftops.