I Say I’m an Open Book

What it means to be an open book — when you’re the one editing the chapters.

I say I’m an open book.
But everyone knows that’s not true.
I call it a challenge.

Something about that line always makes people lean in.
Like I’m daring them to try.
To flip through the pages I’ve dog-eared just for show,
and wonder what’s been blacked out.
What’s been burned.

Because sure — I’ll talk.
I’ll let you hold the spine.
I’ll even smile while you read.

But that doesn’t mean the story’s whole.
Doesn’t mean you’ve met the author.
Doesn’t mean I won’t rewrite the ending the second your voice gets too close to the truth.

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Most people don’t know how to hold mystery without turning it into a mirror.
They assume if I don’t tell them something, it’s because it isn’t real.
But it’s the opposite.
The real things?
They’re too sacred to sell.
Too fragile to let echo off someone else's interpretation.
Too mine to survive translation.

When I was younger, I said too much.
Told the truth before people were ready to hear it.
And the way they looked at me — like I’d said something wrong,
or grown up too fast —
that look stuck.
It taught me that honesty could ruin a moment.
That sometimes,
they don’t want the truth from a 9-year-old with a baby face and an old soul.
They just want the smile. The surface.
The version of you that doesn’t ask them to feel too much.

So now I laugh. I deflect. I share just enough.
Anecdotes with edge. Memories dressed in humor.
And if you’re lucky —
one honest thing that slips out sideways and stains the room for a second.

But the real story?
The one I’ve never said out loud — not even to myself?
That comes next.