Thirty-six years
I’ve carried the secret with me
tucked between heartbreaks
and sunshine.
It has sped down distant highways,
leaped dark ocean waves,
and hiked foreign mountain tops,
clinging resiliently
to my heart’s unhinged door.
Stashed so deeply
I forget it’s there.
Babies birthed.
Daddy died.
Matrimony
attempted. I tried.
Sun rises
on time each day
while sunsets
make the pain go away.
I forget
until a smirk on a stranger’s face
sends tingles to my toes,
until I ache to share
a breath-stealing description
found nestled between yellowed pages.
I forget.
Successfully securing
beneath smiles and congratulations,
beneath friendship and hard places
– the depths of the sea
buried within me.
Stephie De los Santos
10/03/2018
iWrite the Utterly Impossible 