Descent Magazine
Stealing y ur Secrets Writing by Sisi Li Desgin by Raina Paeper
ordinary secrets, careless secrets, the first secret that slipped from your mouth in late november, wrapped in autumn leaves and fading daylight. a trivial, short-lived thing, still I picked it up & kept it in my pocket. casual secrets, accidental secrets, idle secrets, secrets of the five-minute walk tip-toed from your house to mine, behind the magnolia bushes, over the broken fence. the door was ajar but you knocked anyway. & every time after. implied secrets, tentative secrets, offhand secrets, secrets as jokes & secrets as probes, secrets I relaxed out of your grip with patience & a generous measure of sarcasm. between laughter, you called me trouble, called me dangerous — say it once, twice, again — I had never been dangerous to someone before. for you, I learned to fold it into myself, wore it like a ribbon in my hair. crisp secrets, chilled secrets, secrets you wrote into powder snow that vanished by morning. thawed secrets and flawed secrets — could I tell the difference? — lining the doors of february. the fireplace was warm but your sweater was closer. we were not liars but the curtains stayed closed. budding secrets, fragile secrets, secrets you cast into the sky, trembling like fledglings in first flight. spring coaxed secrets up through the pavement cracks, fluttering around our ankles. I offered you a dandelion but the breeze blew the wishes away before you could. I’d save you another, you made me promise, a secret laced around your pinky finger. muffled secrets, rough secrets, secrets & stories & dreams you tossed up on the trampoline, the one resting and rusting in my backyard. once summer emerged from behind the trees, we wasted evenings draping our bodies across the mesh mat. we traced the stars under the hum of cicada-song, our limbs nearly corpse-like, nearly touching. warm secrets, tart secrets, secrets you drizzled in honey & scorching spice, leaving chemtrails under my tongue that I retraced in evaluation, in earnest. secrets you tucked behind my ear, secrets passed from lips to collarbones — the sound of my name, pressed into a question, a test — collision, others might call it,
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