There is a place inside you No map has ever traced, a quiet room behind the ribs where light forgets to stay. No one sees it when you smile, No one hears it when you speak. It moves beneath your laughter like a river running deep. It is yours alone to carry, not carved for other hands, a language made of silence Only your soul understands. Some mornings it is heavier, a stone you cannot name, And still you rise and wear your life as if it were the same. But pain, it does not leave you when ignored or pushed away, it waits within the folds of time, it learns you day by day. It is not your enemy, though it cuts without a sound; it is the truth you buried but still lives underground. And yes, there are nights it breaks you, when endurance feels too wide, when even breath feels borrowed And there is nowhere left to hide. Yet somehow you continue, not because you do not fall, but because within the breaking You still answer life’s call. You learn to walk beside it, not beneath it, not above...
I tried to be nice,
Softened my voice, bent my will,
Did as they wanted,
Learned how to stand perfectly still.
I measured my steps for their comfort,
Carried their weight on my back,
Walked the extra mile barefoot,
Hoping love would walk me back.
No one noticed the effort,
The nights I swallowed my pain,
The smiles I stitched to my face
While my heart stood in the rain.
I gave until my hands were empty,
Until my name meant less than dust,
And still they looked right through me,
As if kindness was a flaw, not trust.
Like trash, I was treated,
Discarded without a sound,
Used, then quietly forgotten,
Left on unforgiving ground.
What a cruel world this is,
Where goodness is easy to break,
Where the gentle are mistaken
For people who can endlessly take.
If I grow colder tomorrow,
If my kindness learns to rest,
Know this—
I tried my best.
© 2025 Gloria Penelope
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