Hidden bottles under the bed, hidden *** toys, hidden pills, hidden emotions,
there are many things I can talk about
when I think about what I’ve stowed away.

Honesty is often yoked to Openness
by people who don’t understand.
When angered, they use words like
sneaky and liar
as tools to pry me open.
“Stop shutting us out,”
they'll demand,
like they deserve my truths.

But what they don’t realize is that
I am not an open book.
I am
a gentle fragile thing.
Handle me carefully
and I will shock you
with how open I can be.

But know
that I will snap shut
at the first sign of danger,
go back into hiding.

I am not an open book
and there are things you will never know.