“Their Secret”
by Adena M’lynn
It hid beneath lullabies and locked doors,
beneath “good girl bad girl” and “don’t tell.”
See, childhood trauma wears a smile,
a painted grin for Sunday mornings,
for picture days and family prayers,
while the heart trembles behind the lens.
The man, the woman—
they wear masks stitched from charm and scripture. I shouted, “I wear his ring.”
a Mason’s little secret, sewn beneath his smile,
no, THEIR smiles.
Their hands know the art of deception,
their tongues plant seeds
that bloom into silence.
You know the deeds they wish to sow—
not love, not light,
but shame dressed in Sunday clothes.
And I—
I was the soil they buried IT in,
a child too young to understand
THE protecting of the secret
was how they kept me small,
how they stole my voice
and called it obedience.
But even buried things remember the sun.
And I am remembering now.
The secret may have silenced me once—
but not forever.
I have learned to speak their names
without fear of the dark,
to unearth the child within me
and let her breathe again.
Because truth,
once whispered,
cannot be buried twice.
Comments
Post a Comment