665 secrets in the open
Read by what it is about
These are open to anyone. The rest of the night — thousands more — is traded one secret for one.
Secrets about fathers
First my brother died, then Dad two years later, and I nursed them both. At the end Dad asked, is your…
Secrets about mothers
Call me by my first name, my mother asked in her last coherent request, not Mom, just once, so she could hear…
Secrets about marriage
I grieve my marriage more than I grieved my divorce, because the divorce was an event and the marriage was a…
Secrets about grief
Guilt is a chore chart. My sister flew home for the dying; I stayed three time zones away and paid for…
Secrets about drinking and getting sober
We ended it because of my drinking and I got sober two years later and I've stayed sober eleven years, and…
Secrets about illness and the body
During his last hospital stay, my father asked me to sneak him real coffee. I said no, doctor's orders. He…
Secrets about faith and doubt
I found faith and then lost my son and then lost the faith, in that order, and people in the church looked at…
Secrets about love
I loved a man who loved someone else openly and I stayed convinced I could win, and I never did, and you…
Secrets about regret
Dad had a whole second tackle box under the boat seat. Cigarettes, a flask, a photo of a woman in a yellow…
Secrets about work
My boss and I have a thing that isn't a thing. I got the promotion on my own merit — I know I did, I've…
Secrets about money
I finally paid off the debt of my crossing, the money borrowed to get here, the years of scrimping, and I…
Secrets between siblings
I loved my sister's best friend all through our twenties and never said it because my sister warned me off,…
Secrets parents keep
We were seventeen on a bridge and carved our initials, and I drove my own kids past it last summer and my…
Secrets about friendship
I loved a man in my friend group for years and watched him date two of my closest friends in turn, and I…
Secrets from school and growing up
My students think I've been teaching high school English for twenty years because I love Dickens. The real…
Secrets about strangers and small kindnesses
I met a woman at a bus stop who was from three villages over from where my mother was born, and we talked for…
Secrets about home and leaving it
He laughed at my accent once, in 2004, so I sanded it off. He's three states away with somebody new. The…
Secrets about growing older
Grandpa didn't retire. The bank took the farm, and the family agreed, without ever saying it out loud, to use…
Secrets about being alone
I found a lump this year and told no one, scheduled everything myself, drove myself, sat in the beige rooms…
Have one of your own?
Release it anonymously and the night hands you a stranger's in return.
Release a secret →