Secert keepers

Has anyone ever thought to understand a friend? Do we depend on friends or do they depend on us? Is it both? Has anyone ever thought to ask the doorman how his day was? Has anyone ever considered keeping a secret for the secret keeper? No they have not. For he knows everything. He is trusted with everything, and anything. He could start wars, ruin lives, destroy friendships, create chaos. But he does not, and for one reason.
The secret keeper knows his place, he knows that every secret he holds, is dear and precious. He knows that the only reason he has friends is because he is the secret keeper. He in neither pretty, intelligent, witty, smooth, funny, nor anything to justify a good friend. But, he is always there. He clings to the hope that they really want him, really need him as a friend. He knows things no one else can “ever find out”, things he can “never tell anyone”.
Therefore he becomes in essence, no longer a friend, but a threat, one that must be tamed, one that will be tamed. He is content with living this way for a while, understanding that knowledge is power, that he holds every card. But chooses not to see it as such, instead chooses to see it as that he is the most trusted friend. And he truly believes this, and acts as such. The secret keeper isn’t just that way for one person, he is the secret keeper, holding everyone’s cards.
And those who speak to him, who reveal their secrets epitomize selfishness. They trust him with every secret, every heartache, every depression. Never do they ask in return if the secret keeper needs help. They never think he does, because he can help them, he can hold onto all those secrets. A crude charade is all he needs to fool them. He fakes a smile, and looks back and shows that all is well.
But nothing is.
He is beyond help, beyond suicide, beyond redemption. He has reached that distant place a poet only dreams about in their darkest nights, which the depressed hope to live in their worst fantasies. He understands all sadness; he feels it with every fiber of his being. And yet, after this, he says nothing. For he is selfish also. Show his problems, and friends may stop coming forth with theirs. If he is no longer the secret keeper, how would he have friends? Who would spare a problem child the time of day?
A friend, but he has none.
He instead chooses fate’s cruel punishment. He is damned to know and to be known, but never to love. When he loves, he is shunned. Whilst when he is loved, his call returns far too late. To know pain as he knows is to understand why we have death. Pain speaks a million languages; it flows from one to another intertwining everything in life together under it.