A nautilus enfolded within the briny muck of a spiral shell

Builds secret chambers behind a trapdoor hood

While unintentionally broadcasting its prehistoric identity

Found in ruddy stripes, genetically imposed

Feathered tentacles unfold, slippery with sticky secretions

Tentatively emerging to taste and touch a dark and undulating world

Then, alarmed by a swiftly changing current, siphons away

To hide within secure crevasses of ancient rock.

And so begins, a life.

When a piece-- violet-- clunks the board.

Let us begin.

Smiling with vigor and youth.

How arrogant, how playful.

Moving along colored tiles.

Rambling around in graceful ballet steps.

Dancing and floating about.

In a storm of dandelion fluffs.

But wipe that away and so is left the solemn duties of social graces.

Social graces, that for the little purple piece, possesses thorns.

And so the player grows antsy as they do cold.

Moves their piece along with caution.

Desires money and status.

Draws their cards and does the maths.

Which school? Which value? And what course of study?

She is ten years old.

The violet piece, who knows its age. It is a toy.

And from there on continues the dictated clothes.

Did you notice?

The player is in a nice shirt and khaki pants.

Continues life all on their lonesome.

In the sickness and the health.

Of loneliness.

Some days it is sickening.

The utter quiet, the destitute of doing nothing, being nothing beyond a small house.

Others it is a pleasure. To be left to thoughts and amalgamations spanning the sky of imagined ideas. Of creative overture.

Directed, dictated with the wand tipped in pencil lead.

And who knows when it starts.

Just before, when they have met the other.

Player and piece.

Meeting upon the board.

Seated herself, just like that.

Our player, for a whole second, may have scowled.

But then, then she beamed.

They continue on together.

Sometimes one ahead, sometimes the other.

Until joy and laughter fills where the kids are playing with their different colored pieces.

Through cold and through heat.

Through the rain and through the snow, when they do by phone.

But the game, is still not done.

It's still not done.

The purple piece wants to shout.

Because there's a future, there's life and there's friends. They may leave me behind.

The piece, is no longer a toy.

Having lived and run and raced across life.

Before tasting laughter and having the caring hands of another.

Days and days go by before her player comes back.

She is in loose clothes but still smiles.

Leering towards that little toy.

That with two fingers she flicks to its side.

The game, very much over for the time being.

In public,

I am successful and educated.

I know right from wrong,

and I stay away from the things that are not

good

for me and the life I want to live.

My private life, is more complicated.

I struggle,

never knowing if what I am currently doing

and what I plan on doing,

will be enough.

I doubt every move I make,

and I'm anxious all the time.

But my secret life-

the one that no one knows about,

and I fail to acknowledge exists most of the time,

is the one in which I mourn.

Only then can I express the feelings that weigh me down,

burden my soul.

My most real life-

is my secret life.

Even though I desperately wish it weren't.

On display. A bouquet of flowers, a painting, an artifact—my public life is on display for all to see, for all to look at. I spend my time with friends, with acquaintances, with strangers, and they are all part of my public life. My public persona, the person you see sitting across from you on the train, she is my public life, she lives my public life. My public life is a masquerade, a masked ball, and I've worked so hard to make my mask beautiful, to make my mask lovable and likable and tolerable.

Selectively hidden. Sheltered behind a barricade, treasured inside a home; my private life is selective and hidden from the outside world. Family, close friends, my dearest loved ones—these are the players in the game of my private life. I let them in, let them one layer closer. With them, my mask comes off, my hair comes down, I trade my heels for comfortable slippers. They can see a side of me that I dare not reveal in public. They can see past the facade, past the masquerade of put-togetherness and anxious politeness. My hobbies, my likes, my dislikes—these are also parts of my private life. My private life is a more faithful representation of who I truly am. My private life is what I do when no one's looking, my private life is dancing alone in the kitchen at 2am.

Locked away. There are secrets about my life that even I don't know; things locked away and long forgotten. Inside my heart, I keep a chest of all the memories that I dare not recollect. Much like a dusty box in the family attic, I will not open this chest until I am old enough for these secrets to not matter so much. Even then, some items will remain hidden, tucked away, wrapped in velvet cloth and padded with shredded newspaper. My secret life is mine alone. There are things I've done that no one can ever know. There are thoughts I've thought that no one will ever find out about. There are ideas I've had that will live forever in shadow and secrecy.