that secret that we know, that we don't know how to tell

can i tell you a secret.

'teenage dream' by katy perry plays at work and more than once it has almost made me cry. now i am listening to it on repeat but i don't know why.

last year -- december 2009 -- i was wandering up and down a street i knew too well. i was always looking for this one person without trying to make it look like i was looking for her; i was smoking cigarettes outside leaning on trees; i was stumbling down mountains and listening to bon iver and crying and desperate all the time. my money was gone and i was drunk as hell.

sometimes my secret is this: the ground is wet with snow but it is not snowing. the air is damp like it was just raining and the glow of lights reflect on the pavement. car lights. street lamps. i want to chain smoke. i am surrounded by people and all at once i am happy and sad and alone and hopeful. the night is just beginning and there are still places we haven't been.

sometimes my secret is this: i do not know the difference between being in love and wanting a mother. i am sorry. i do not know the difference.

one year ago -- december 2009 -- i was standing in the fitting room at my job. a song was making me cry. in my mind the street i seemed to always be standing on was upside down; my feet were on the sky. that's the way i walked around.

sometimes i have no secrets and it makes me feel bare but no one asks. a secret is hidden; if there is nothing to hide but no one is looking then what is there. am i secret if i don't exist. whose secret am i. what is the point of a secret if not to reveal it one day.

lately my secret has been that grey's anatomy makes me cry. i just let myself sink into this hand crafted world where people live and die with the stroke of a pen. and when parents hear that their children are dead and they break down in each other's arms, i break down too. i let myself cry over this tv show because it's easier than crying over real life.

tell me a secret if you so desire.

++

I am in love
with the way I see the world.
But I am all alone there.
- Matthew Rohrer "Hone Quarry"

i don't feel this way, but it's a beautiful line.