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wes parham Apr 2023
If I told you I had seen it already,
You’d have told me I was full of ****.
The joy, the future for each of you,
And the secret that there was more to it.

In a vision, you held an infant child,
A happy but confusing sight.
Confusing in stillness , nothing said,
And happy because it was obviously right.

Another vision, and you were at risk,
I slept on your floor to keep you from harm.
Just a glance on waking, still nothing said,
A smile before leaving, as you touched my arm.

In one surreal vision, you actually killed me.
(I never really understood that one…)
I even loved you for what you had done,
Maybe it was some kind of metaphor,
Some kind of mercy?

I honestly couldn’t say and, trust me,
I love a good metaphor.

You know what was really frightening, though?
How clear the next vision was.
It was light and joy, it was love itself, fulfilled.
And it horrified me to see it,
Right in the palm of my hand.

An old familiar face looked down and laughed.
She told me, “they are all in trouble now…”
“Precarious balance, and one is in real danger…”
“Best not **** it up…!”
And she laughed so hard I thought she’d **** herself.
If those kind of creatures even do that…

I honestly couldn’t say and, trust me,
I’m not afraid to ask her.

But one vision shook me when it proved true.
So many visions from the smallest of clues.
I didn’t mean to get close, or look for connections,
I just wanted to learn and seek the reflection.
To know, and to laugh,
With someone like you.
Share a table, a cup,
and a secret or two.

But the seer would see how our lines became crossed,
She spoke much of love, of a life and it’s loss.
She spoke of how my role,
Would be monumental,
Expendable, Trivial, but still…
       Instrumental.

I grew angry at how she manipulates me,
One alien and his hard-won humanity.
But the seer was right, I would have to go,
Leave the scene and assure that
    No one could know.

I created the door that it may be sealed,
And retreated to the opposite side,
Where I would be hated or feared, maybe both,
And none could ever know,
How, quietly, I cried.
In deep cover, the operative blends in at considerable risk.  Their superiors know this, though, and choose carefully those with the resilience to not lose themselves in the task at hand.
  When the seer herself asked me to mediate a nearly lost blood line, I felt a multitude of feelings.  I would feign affection, gain trust, and work with only crackpot visions to instruct me.  she believed in me, though.  Despite the guilt and deception, I trusted the program and, above all, the seer’s choice of operatives.
Anais Vionet Apr 2023
You hope that university will answer all of life’s questions, but nope.

I don’t know, I.

There was a guy who’d been hanging around outside our residence lately. Too consistently. At first, I thought he was someone’s friend but he’s always alone. He wasn’t doing anything or bothering my roommates, but that asymmetry set off my alarms.

He looked at me once (which I suppose isn’t a crime), I think, it was quick - a blink of sharp curiosity. I mentioned it to Charles who took his picture. The next morning he said the guy’s a legit student who has no criminal record, so maybe I’m all wrong.

Every girl’s encountered a creep or two before. They’re seemingly everywhere, as if mandated by law, like auto insurance. Most girls develop a sixth sense, a creep-dar. Nowadays, creeps have a new name, “incel” ("involuntary celibate") and they’re a recognized, online subculture. Next, they’ll have a coat of arms proclaiming, “We Would if We Could.” It’s as if awkwardness, a normal human foible, has been distilled into something dangerous.

Although the campus looks like a garden or a perfectly manicured ‘stepford’ park, we joke that it’s really a locked-down, patrolled, surveilled compound, with guards, cameras and card-key access to everything. Which, I suppose, is all to the good.

Our creeper wasn’t there Friday, and he wasn’t there today, so maybe he was nothing.

I don’t know, 2.

I was in Sunny’s room. We were going shopping in a few. There was a little pink book on her bed - a diary!! I’d never seen it before and it was open, about three-quarters of the way. She too-casually moved to scoop it up, like the neglected book of a sorcerer.

My GOSSIP-dar Alerted like a class bell. “Hmm” I hummed, head-tilted, then I laughingly lunged for the book.
Sunny’s eyes went wide for 3-billionths of a second and she snapped it up with the speed of a striking cobra, “That’s MINE” she said, rigid with seriousness.
“What’s going ON?!” I asked, but she shoved it into her night table.
Another mystery!
‘Sleeping dogs,’ I thought to myself.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Foibles: a minor shortcoming in character or behavior.

When I say our “residence” I mean Pauli Murray, one Yale’s residential colleges where there are 800 students.
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2023
her hesitating beauty
over a hundred days
each a silk thread
each a dark pearl

kissing specifics
in the empty space of a matinée
hologram of the new sun
burning like prime meridian, the hunter's star

ripples of inhibition, making waves
and confessions in
the deep end of a pool

always submissive with a smile
like holding her breath underwater
Jamesb Jan 2023
I am an onion,
Layer upon layer there
Is of me,
And none of these
So readily revealed
To casual scrutiny,

Oh  no you must work
And work hard to
Learn each layer,
Reveal every closely guarded
Aspect of my being
Or my soul

But dig hard enough,
Dig deep enough
And with a sharp enough blade,
And with dedication
You may just see
That which I may choose you to
Sara Brummer Nov 2022
SECRETS

They begin with phantom emotions,
perhaps of past moments dreamed
or a future not yet revealed.
They whisper soft winter music
in the pines, making shadow sounds
on the voice of air.

They are faint pencil lines
on a transparent screen,
a glimpse into the little sky
of mind.

They are sometimes sung
among the clouds or dropped
in silver words upon a soundless sea.
They are a moment breaking open,
a sip of understanding, an arrow
piercing the heart with a surprise
of unknown light.
Underneath, there are secrets
Kept safe from prying eyes
Held fast and secure
Behind a lame disguise

Would they think less of me
If everything was shown
I wonder, would their eyes still see
The person they have known
Zywa Nov 2022
Power is: never

allowing what whoever --


keeps secret for you.
"The Satanic Verses" (1988, Salman Rushdie)

Collection "Low gear"
R A Lee Jan 2016
I want to forgive
but should I forget?

I want to forget
but will I never forgive?

I ask myself
Am I too loyal? Am I not a ***** enough?

But to you, I ask why?
Your secrets are safe.

Our future depends on what you say next
I already know
I have known for some time now

Why did you lie?
It hurts you do not trust me to tell me your fantasies
I just wanted YOU to tell me

Why have you hurt me?
What happens next depends on you.
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