1566: What I Wanted to Keep Private by Melissa Crowe

Summary

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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

Episode 1566: What I Wanted to Keep Private by Melissa Crowe
Host: Maggie Smith
Date: July 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Slowdown centers on the theme of self-compassion and forgiveness, particularly focused on the struggle to forgive oneself for past transgressions. Host Maggie Smith introduces and reflects on Melissa Crowe’s poem, “What I Wanted to Keep Private,” sharing personal insights about guilt, shame, and how poetry facilitates confession and healing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Forgiving Oneself

• Maggie Smith’s Reflection: Maggie opens with a candid exploration of her ability to forgive others, but her relative difficulty in extending the same grace to herself.

  • “I have plenty of faults, but holding grudges isn’t one of them… I can let go and move on without malice. The way I see it, we are all only human.” [01:03]
  • She contrasts this with self-directed criticism: “I’m slow to forgive myself when I hurt someone else. I think self-compassion is the most challenging kind of compassion. We are so hard on ourselves, aren’t we?” [01:58]

• Insight: Smith observes that people often ruminate about past mistakes, carrying feelings of guilt and shame even after situations are long gone.

  • “We humans carry around so much guilt and shame. We ruminate about breakups and arguments. We think about the things we said in anger that we wish we could take back. We think about the things we didn’t say and wish we had.” [02:31–02:44]

2. Poetry as Confession and Release

• Introducing the Poem: Maggie frames today’s featured poem as a confession, suggesting that poetry can serve as a vessel for both self-compassion and letting go.
  • “The speaker of today’s poem confesses something and in doing so, with self-compassion and self-forgiveness, sets it down.” [02:47]

3. “What I Wanted to Keep Private” by Melissa Crowe

Poem read aloud by Maggie Smith [02:52–06:03]

• Crowe’s poem explores desire, guilt, and vulnerability through intimate confessions.
• The poem recounts a teenage act: stealing her grandmother’s gold necklace and giving it to a sweetheart, only for both the necklace and relationship to be lost.
• The narrator holds on to shame and guilt over the incident, reflecting an ongoing struggle with self-forgiveness.
• Crowe broadens the theme by describing things taken and lost, not just by herself but by others, illustrating the universality of such moments.

Notable Quotes from the Poem

• “But I wanted to keep private that desire and that fear once I transgressed. But I’m not a permanent monster is a thing a friend said to comfort me for some sin of my own.” [03:09]
• “When I was 15, I took my grandmother’s gold necklace and gave it to a sweetheart… Lost. And I lost the sweetheart, too, but I carried the lead weight. Shame of that theft secret until now. I don’t feel any lighter.” [03:24–03:54]
• “It’s not so hard to forgive that boy. Who doesn’t sometimes want to hold a soft thing not his own, who doesn’t hope to know the sugar name that calls the handsome stranger home. Anyway, I’m not alone.” [04:16]
• “Once I was the kind of monster who takes the gold from one beloved throat to trim another. Once I was the kind who hid the hunger that drives my hand as though only a said thing’s made true. Now I love you, I just want to be said.” [05:36]

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Memorable Moments & Tone

• Maggie Smith sets a compassionate, gentle tone, employing empathy as she discusses the shared human struggle of regret and self-forgiveness.
• The act of reading poetry aloud makes the confessional nature of the poem deeply intimate and relatable, inviting listeners to confront their own secrets and past missteps with grace.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Forgiving Others vs. Self – Maggie Smith’s opening reflections [01:03–02:44]
• Introducing the Poem & Theme of Confession [02:45–02:51]
• Reading of “What I Wanted to Keep Private” [02:52–06:03]
• Notable Poem Quotes & Themes [03:09, 03:24–03:54, 04:16, 05:36]

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Notable Quotes with Attribution

• “I think self compassion is the most challenging kind of compassion. We are so hard on ourselves, aren’t we?”
  — Maggie Smith, [01:58]

• “When I was 15, I took my grandmother’s gold necklace and gave it to a sweetheart…Lost. And I lost the sweetheart too, but I carried the lead weight. Shame of that theft secret until now. I don’t feel any lighter.”
  — from “What I Wanted to Keep Private,” read by Maggie Smith, [03:24–03:54]

• “Once I was the kind of monster who takes the gold from one beloved throat to trim another. Once I was the kind who hid the hunger that drives my hand as though only a said thing’s made true. Now I love you, I just want to be said.”
  — from “What I Wanted to Keep Private,” read by Maggie Smith, [05:36]

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Conclusion

Maggie Smith’s reflection and the reading of Melissa Crowe’s “What I Wanted to Keep Private” create a moving meditation on regret, tenderness, and self-acceptance. Listeners are encouraged to recognize their own flaws and past mistakes, not to excuse them, but to forgive themselves and move toward a more compassionate relationship with both self and others.

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Transcript

[A]

I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.

[B]

Start your free [e-mail] this podcast is supported by Raymond James, a financial firm offering wealth management, banking and capital markets services that are inspired by people before Raymond James Financial advisors build plans. They build relationships so they can craft individual strategies designed to achieve priorities and pursue what's possible. That's the power of personal disclosures. At raymondjames.com, raymond James and Associates, Inc. Meg Member NYSE Sipic.

[C]

I'm Maggie Smith and this is the Slowdown. I have plenty of faults, but holding grudges isn't one of them. Even when someone hurts me deeply, once I'm past the sting and shock, I can find it in my heart to forgive them. That doesn't mean I excuse their behavior, and it doesn't mean I allow them continued access to me and keep them in my life. But I can let go and move on without malice. The way I see it, we are all only human. We hurt one another, often completely unintentionally.

[D]

We do our best, but we still mess up. Sometimes I mess up and while I'm pretty quick to forgive someone else who's hurt me, I'm slow to forgive myself when I hurt someone else. I think self compassion is the most challenging kind of compassion. We are so hard on ourselves, aren't we? We humans carry around so much guilt and shame.

[C]

We ruminate about breakups and arguments. We think about the things we said

[D]

in anger that we wish we could take back.

[C]

We think about the things we didn't

[D]

say and wish we had. We replay the past despite being unable to change it. The speaker of today's poem confesses something and in doing so with self compassion and self forgiveness sets it down. What I Wanted to Keep Private by Melissa Crow I wanted you Last night when I woke my body vibrating like train shook ground and might have let out the train's slow scream, the kind that quickens as the beast draws near. But I wanted to keep private that desire and that fear once I transgressed. But I'm not a permanent monster is a thing a friend said to comfort me for some sin of my own. But in the dark that phrase travels me like a pulse, shocking each cloistered organ in turn. When I was 15, I took my grandmother's gold necklace and gave it to a sweetheart bit of shimmer that graced my favorite neck until it slipped off, sunk in the silt of a summer lake. Lost. And I lost the sweetheart too, but I carried the lead weight. Shame of that theft secret until now I don't feel any lighter. I don't know what I might yet steal, though I remember everything stolen from me like the kitten loosed from our house in the morning and by afternoon purring in the arms of a neighbor kid who swaggered up the driveway, invited me to stroke his new cat. It's not so hard to forgive that boy who doesn't sometimes want to hold a soft thing not his own, who doesn't hope to know the sugar name that calls the handsome stranger home. Anyway, I'm not alone. Once I was the kind of monster who takes the gold from one beloved throat to trim another. Once I was the kind who hid the hunger that drives my hand as though only a said things made true. Now I love you, I just want to be said.

[C]

The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter and find us on Instagram lowdownshow and bluesky slowdownshow.org the slowdown is written by me, Maggie Smith. The show is produced by Micah Kielbon and Maria Wurtel. Our music is composed by Kyle Andrews, engineering by Derek Ramirez and Maurizio Durico. Our script editor and digital producer is Jordan Turgeon. Additional production help by Susanna Sharpless and Lauren Humpert. APM's Director of Distribution is Amy Lundgren, and our president is Chandra Kavati.

[E]

I'm Amy Scott, host of How We Survive, a podcast about the messy business of climate solutions. To a lot of people, geoengineering might seem like a dangerous, outlandish way to play God, but some are embracing this sci fi inspired approach as a solution to the climate crisis.

[F]

We're gonna launch some balloons and send them into the stratosphere. A constellation of sunshades would cast an even dimming of shade across the entire earth. Investing that much in building anything in space creates a whole space economy.

[E]

Listen to how we survive on your favorite podcast app.