The Secret (Part 2)

Why can't I tell my secret?
What am I afraid will
happen if I let slip
whatever it is I have
been hiding?

Dissolution of my self?
No.
I have lived with
this weight for too
long, soul already
transformed.

Dissolution of a
particular image I
present to others?
Yes. The "I"
presented will cease
to exist, foundations
of a life lived
in tatters at the
feet of a new "I."

But what is so bad
about this, I wonder
thinking in what
seems to be an
infinite, impenetrable
pitch.

Living a lie cannot
be a good thing,
living with an ordinary
mask while your
face underneath is
scarred,

while underneath you
possess deep lines
of pain, and eyes
that shimmer with
gained wisdom,

all masked for alabaster
skin and dull eyes,
products of common
culture.

Yet in this accepted
beauty can be comfort:

on days when you
look outside and see spring,
verdant green and
wild birds, locked in ritual
rebirth,

one days when you
step outside and feel
the warmth against flesh,
and melt inside,
unconcerned with the
past, on a path bent
toward a better life.

And then the sunshine
fades, the lush green
lost to mysterious black,
renewal now distant
memory,

arriving at a night
like to-night, when
history and memory
blossom, Venus
Fly Traps devouring
your content.

The masked benefits
lost to your difference
in the most reverberating
ways, lost to your
difference with every
bit of acrid emotion on
tongue and in air.

I should just tell my
secret.

I should just tell it,
Past poets, listen
to me!; maybe if
I utter to the dead
first, letting it escape
my lips will not
seem too hard.

But not now, not
here. Tomorrow,
tomorrow I will tell.