You told me I would be your secret

and I agreed, because I wanted any piece of you I could get.

Even if that meant barely knowing you – exchanging confessions in secrecy

but pretending that you meant nothing to me in front of others. 

And being hidden by you

felt like an honor.

But I deserved to be more than a secret, an option,

someone you didn’t tell your friends about–

something secondary that you could push to the back of your mind when it was convenient.

Wasn’t I someone to you? 

Someone to talk about? Someone you wanted to share with others?

Meaningful enough to gush about to your friends?

Someone whose presence stuck with you even when we were physically apart?
Someone who you were reminded of by all the little things:

weather, colors, intertwined hands? A smile, a nose ring?

Someone who outweighed the risk, the conceivable danger, of people finding out about us?

Someone whose love made it all worth it? Made you proud enough, happy enough, to tell others about, despite that lingering fear of people knowing. Judgment. 

I stayed in that little box you built me, in the back of your brain,

for as long as I could tolerate the confinement–

grateful for the small space because it was space at all.

But I am more than a secret. 

I am a person.

And I deserve more than the bare minimum that you gave me.