There will be a season when you have done all you know to do and still, nothing. No answer at the door. No sudden change. No sign in the sky telling you that tomorrow will be kinder. Just you, your unanswered prayer, and the strange silence that makes you question whether God is still listening. He is. Do not mistake silence for absence. Some of God's deepest work happens without making a sound. Roots grow in darkness. Healing happens beneath skin. Morning begins long before the window knows there is light. And somewhere beyond what you can see, your life is being moved by hands you cannot follow. So do not abandon your faith because you cannot trace God's footsteps. You were never promised a clear view. You were given enough light for the next step. Take it. Even if your knees shake. Even if your heart has questions your mouth is afraid to ask. Take it. Faith is not a life without uncertainty. It is waking up with uncertainty beside you and refusing to let it choose your direc...
Don’t be naïve.
Do not dress this ruin
in silks of misunderstanding.
There was no hidden tenderness here,
no buried cathedral of feelings,
waiting to be discovered.
I never cared.
Not in the way you deserved,
not with a pulse that quickened at your name,
not with a soul rearranged
by your presence.
I never loved you.
What you mistook for warmth
was rehearsal.
What you held as promise
was practice.
I was only passing through,
a traveller pausing at a lit window,
borrowing its glow
without intention of staying.
A practice was needed.
So was I.
I tried on affection
like a garment before a mirror,
tilted my head
to study how concern might look
if it belonged to me.
I learned the lines,
the softened voice,
the attentive silence,
the careful reach of my hand toward yours.
But the truth,
unyielding as winter,
remains:
I never cared.
Not when you spoke of forever.
Not when your eyes searched mine
for something deeper
than reflection.
There was nothing cruel in me,
only emptiness,
a hollow room
where echoes pretended to be music.
You were real.
I was rehearsing.
And though I stood beside you,
though I spoke the language of closeness,
my heart was elsewhere,
unclaimed,
untouched,
untethered.
Don’t be naïve.
Some people arrive
not as destiny,
not as love,
but as lesson,
passing through the fragile architecture
of another’s hope,
leaving behind the cold clarity
of what was never there.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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