The mountain never bowed to applause, Nor did the river pause for tears. The sky has carried a thousand storms Without remembering a single face. You are a traveler, not the road. A heartbeat, not the clock. The world was already speaking Long before it learned your name. Some goodbyes bloom from seasons, Not from mistakes. Some distances are drawn by time, Not by the hands that reach across them. Don't make yourself the author Of every unfinished sentence. Some pages are left blank Because silence belongs there. There is a strange mercy In not standing at the center Of every ending, Of every change. The sun does not rise to prove a point. The stars do not dim to send a message. Life simply unfolds, Wild, indifferent, beautiful. So carry your kindness, Leave your footprints lightly, And when the world turns without asking, Smile. It's not about you. That's how it is. © 2026 Gloria Penelope
After all these years of breaking quietly,
of carrying pain like a second name
No one has bothered to pronounce me right
I walk through a world
that sharpens its edges on my skin,
asking me to be softer, stronger, smaller—
anything but myself.
Every mirror asks a question
I don’t know how to answer.
I am made of scars
that never learned how to fade,
of nights that stretched too long,
of mornings that arrived without mercy.
I survived them all,
Though survival feels like a language
I’m still learning to speak.
I search for myself
in borrowed smiles,
in half-remembered dreams,
in the silence between my thoughts.
Am I the pain that shaped me?
Am I the hope that refuses to die?
Am I lost?
Am I simply unclaimed?
The world is loud with cruelty,
with hands that take
before they learn how to hold.
I stand in the middle of it,
unsure where I belong,
unsure if belonging
is something people like me are allowed.
Still, beneath the confusion,
something breathes.
A fragile, stubborn truth
that whispers when I am quiet:
I am more than what hurt me.
I am becoming,
even when I don’t know into what.
So what am I?
I am a question still unfolding,
a soul learning its own shape
in a world that tried to erase it.
© 2025 Gloria Penelope
Comments