When I Keep Secrets

1

I hate the feeling of keeping secrets, like the soft, diluted stench of rotting flesh. Stuck on the inside of my nostrils, and burned into the back of my brain. Like I'm carrying around an invisible corpse. When they ask me and I lie, my body revolts. Like someone else crawling in my skin, I tell a story and call it truth. And the truth, it lies in the pit of my stomach, swimming in acid and hiding so that the smiles can last a little while longer.

Pulling the wool lined jacket over my nose, breath hot, ears red. It's early morning and I'm filling up the tank. The clink of metal, red plastic handle. My car is tired, not as tired as me. I fit in perfectly in the gas station convenient store. Wandering the junk food isles along with the others. All of us ghosts. All of us trying to forget how we died.