I’ve lied a few times.
More than a handful.
More than two handfuls.
More than you could count on
ten fingers and ten toes.
Some were little and white,
some big and black,
and some were a rusty red,
the words metallic tasting,
coppery coins on my tongue.
But some were delicious, sweet.
A few I even ate myself
like cake.
Other lies weren’t born in words
but in half-truths,
which I told with my eyes
and the places I put my hands
when I shouldn’t have.
Still, I think I know the truth
when I see it.
It’s in the dizzy feeling you get when you inhale too deeply
and think you’ll never breathe again.
But then you do.
Other times it comes out gently,
like when the sunlight shines just so
through the leaves of a tree,
their dancing shadows confiding
a grand universal in an unremarkable movement.
Maybe the truth is not something we tell or know
but something we notice, if we look hard enough.
Maybe it is something we might even become.
Cassie Whitt | Winchester