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...
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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