Everybody has secrets

There was an untouched film canister in the deepest
part of her mother's drawer.

She was five when she first discovered it,

hidden behind neatly folded undergarments and

rolled socks. Her mother found her tiny hands

holding the cylinder and her incomplete teeth

chomping on its lid, attempting to pry open the

black container. She remembers the sound of her

mother's palm connecting with her arm, the 

sting of the impact, and the red mark it left

on her skin

        — she still shudders whenever her mind

             wanders into the memory.

She's twenty-five and she has a portable hard-drive

in the deepest part of her drawer, hidden

behind her lace lingerie and her husband's

neckties.