When I was ten I begged my parents for one of those diaries with a lock. I couldn’t wait to be thirteen. I couldn’t wait to have secrets. I couldn’t wait to write them all down and lock them all up. It’s no secret that I don’t always get what I deserve, but I do always get what I want. I’m spoiled and I’m a brat and for my tenth birthday, I got a sparkly pink diary with a tiny lock and a tinier key.

I want to be skinny. I want to be famous. I want to be loved. In that order. As much as I’d like to think these desires are secret, I know that they’re not. The yearning sits on my face as plain and clear as my freckles. All my vapid wishes are as obvious as my crooked front teeth. One smile and everyone sees it all, every secret hope I’ve ever had.

When I was eleven, I had a crush on a boy named Charlie with dirty fingernails and perfect pop star hair. Using my most special purple gel pen, I wrote his name in that sparkly pink diary again and again and again. Six hundred purple Charlies in fifth-grade looping cursive. I wrote it expecting something to happen, expecting him to feel it and notice me. He didn’t.

I realized that secrets are not magic. I wrote his name in Sharpie on my thighs. Thick uppercase Charlies all over. I wore my shortest skirt and guava lip gloss. I let his friends notice my legs, see his name, tell him, say my name.

I couldn’t read until the third grade. I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced until I could properly wipe my butt. All the suicide attempts I’ve ever made were half-assed. Are those secrets? Have I told anyone? Probably. Let me try harder. Let me think my most shameful thoughts. That’s all secrets are.

When I was twelve I watched beheadings before dinner. After dinner I went on Wikipedia and tried to figure out if they deserved to die. I didn’t ask my parents about what Charlie meant when he said that the song about she whose milkshake brought all the boys to the yard was about a whore. I wondered what whores did and why they had milkshakes. I didn’t ask my parents about the beheadings either. I loved not knowing. I loved that the world was full of secrets.

I want to have a baby. I want to get pregnant. I want an excuse to get fat and a reason to never make another half-assed suicide attempt. Don’t tell my boyfriend. I think cutting is healthier than Xanax. Don’t tell my psychiatrist. When that thing happened in high school I just chose not to feel violated. Don’t tell my classmates. I think trauma is boring. Don’t tell my friends. I think I might be evil. Don’t tell my mom.

When I was thirteen I got ugly. Nobody told me, but I knew it. It felt like the whole world was keeping a secret from me. I decided that I wouldn’t keep any of my own. I left my diary unlocked in hopes the whole slumber party would read it. They thought I was so weird, but then came Tumblr, etc., etc. I wasn’t weird for long. No one is weird anymore.

It’s not like I tell everyone everything. That would be boring. I keep things from my parents and I lie to therapists for fun. I don’t tell my long-distance boyfriend about the boy I sometimes sleep next to at school, but he knows I get lonely and that it’s cold there. When I’m home alone I’ll eat an entire loaf of bread. At night I wake up because I’m convinced there are bugs crawling into my holes. I thought Pizzagate was probably real. A secret satanic elite runs our world. I think about it all the time. I don’t tell anyone, but if they asked I would.

Part of me still believes that secrets are sacred and special, that secrets are what make women women, grown-ups grown-ups, and the world worth living in. I wish I could turn that little key and open that lock and write something for the first time about cheating or stealing or wanting or itching someplace awful. I wish I could turn that little key and string it on a chain around my neck and close that lock and put the diary away under my floorboards or pillows, someplace only I know of. I want to be skinny, famous, loved, and ten and thirty and held and able to hold that shame tight, the shame that I want and want, but I can’t. I never could and I never will. Instead I leave the key in plain sight. Everyone is invited to my slumber party.