Not so secret

I read a blog post today on one of the random silly websites that I would never really own up to reading but that sometimes make me think about interesting things. This blogger asked: can you sum up love in six words? A modified haiku, shorter perhaps because of the breadth and depth of the topic at hand – love. Readers had posted some responses – some were hilarious, some were sad, all were wonderful.

This also reminded me of a book I recently received as a gift – A lifetime of Secrets. Frank Warren, the author, started up a website where you can send in your secrets and he will post them up for you. Because of the power of anonymity, everyone who sends in their secrets is starkly, painfully, horridly, beautifully truthful. A woman who knows her lover is having an affair, a man thanking a teacher who saved him from molestation, people’s fantasies, their desires, their dreams, their fears, their truths. Catharsis.

So I thought to combine the two and write down some secrets or just some thoughts in six words each. Of course I am not, after all, anonymously posting on someone else’s blog or writing an anonymous postcard. Perhaps not completely catharsis. But still, something.

• When I’m with you I’m happy.
• I see through you. Won’t tell.
• You’re not funny but I laugh.
• Will you be at my wedding?
• She used to smile. He died.
• I’ll always be in your life.
• I am not exotic. Just me.
• You were beautiful; now only thin.
• Thin paper stretched over dead wood.
• The only one with sparkling eyes.
• I really truly laugh with you.
• Since when do you smoke? Why?
• He liked the idea of me.
• I wish you had lived longer.