A Box Full of Secrets

[Misz.angel]

Nobody in town knew his real name,
but everyone called him Skeet.
He only worked when he needed money
and that is how we chanced to meet.

He lived in an old shack just out of town
and at night he was always drunk.
Sometimes, I would visit to take him food
and find him passed out on his bunk.

I used to ask questions about his past,
but he answered each one with lies.
If I pressed really hard, it bothered him
and tears would well up in his eyes.

I was the one that found him that night,
he had hung himself right by his bed.
He left me a letter taped to an old box
and I cried when I saw what it said.

He told me I had been a good friend,
but he just couldn't take anymore.
If I looked in the box it held the answers
of the life he had known once before.

I arranged to have a service for old Skeet
and there were only two people there.
I never did look in the box he left,
but put it beside him with care.

Each time I started to open Skeet's box
I could remember the tears in his eyes.
Finally it hit me all those secrets were his
and I couldn't let him tell them goodbye.




Copyright©2006Billy Rob Hopkins