Love was never a heartbeat. It was the echo left behind after the heart forgot why it was still beating. It arrived wearing another person's face, its hands stitched together from promises that had already begun to rot. I welcomed it. Not because it was kind, but because loneliness knows how to mistake a wolf for warmth. Every smile it offered cast a longer shadow. Every whispered "forever" fed another ghost sleeping beneath my ribs. The thought of love is a clever liar. It builds cathedrals from broken mirrors, then asks us to kneel before our own reflections, calling the illusion destiny. How eagerly we obey. We water flowers that grow from graves, write poems to people who never truly existed, and embrace memories still unborn. Love watches. Silent. Patient. Like a spider waiting in the center of a web woven from hope. It never forces us inside. It simply lets us believe the silver threads are rays of morning light. By the time we understand, the sky has forgotten our ...
Sometimes I look at myself and cry
not from weakness,
but from the quiet shock of survival.
I lived through storms
that were meant to erase me completely.
Setback after setback
stood like walls in my path,
each one whispering, this is the end.
Yet somehow,
I remained.
It is not easy
to be the target of so much negativity,
to carry wounds no one sees,
to smile while healing in silence.
Being a victim is heavy,
but becoming a survivor
is heavier still.
So I thank God
for breath when I felt empty,
for strength when mine was gone,
for life when darkness demanded surrender.
He held me together
When I could not hold myself.
I am here,
Still unbroken,
Still unburied.
And sometimes,
that alone
It's a miracle.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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