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 ...
He loved her in the way stories begin,
soft and convincing.
His words were sweet, like a sugarcane—
freshly cut, dripping sweetness,
impossible to doubt.
From his eyes to hers
fell a look so charming,
so carefully meant,
It felt like the truth had learned her name.
He poured his lies gently,
slow as red wine into a waiting cup—
smooth, rich, intoxicating.
She drank, believing warmth was love,
and belief made her dizzy,
made her stay.
But wine fades.
Morning comes without mercy.
Life, unfair in its honesty,
teaches harsh lessons softly at first.
Women are fooled daily, they say—
not because they are weak,
but because they hope,
because they trust sweetness
before they taste the burn.
And still, she stands,
sober now,
wiser than the lie,
carrying strength where love once sat.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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