Maybe, on a long enough time line, given eternity and whatever comes before and beyond, a secret is as inconsequential as the way light falls on a sidewalk.  

But in this timeframe, a humans lifespan of a timeline, they can be as monumental as a shovel breaking virgin ground and as devastating as a gunshot. An empire can be built over ages on their webbed foundations, while an institution could be torn down by one in just the flash of a camera. A love to span time, blindsided by a single sentence not uttered, or a friendship torn to shreds given just one single glimpse of something hidden. So… we learned how to hide them, stitch them up inside walls of doubt, and shelter them behind easy, practiced smiles. We buried them in the dirt out back or placed them out like trophies on the mantle, in plain sight but so very well hidden. Some worn against hot skin around their necks, others inked them into their flesh, like wards against the past they swore they would not meet again.

Because the thing about secrets, simple put and easily quantified, is that they can shape our lives and worlds if we let them. They are past and future, present and forever, only given how we choose to hide them. 

~m

Part of a series i’m working on, as a way to stretch out those creative writing tendrils a bit. This is the previous (and first) post in the series.