You laugh at them. You point your finger and call them a fool. Their silence amuses you, their gentleness becomes your joke, and the crowd joins your laughter as if kindness were weakness. It feels enjoyable today, sweet on your tongue like careless victory. Their patience becomes your stage, their humility your entertainment. But time is a quiet witness. It watches without speaking, It writes its lessons slowly in the turning pages of life. A day will come When laughter turns into tears. The echoes of your mockery will return to your own ears like thunder across an empty sky. Situations will arise without warning, storms without hands to beat you Yet heavy enough to break your pride. Pain will arrive quietly, And you will feel the trembling of a heart that once laughed too loudly. And that fool, that funny person you once mocked, may stand in the distance, not laughing, but witnessing your tears, your shaking voice, Your falling ego. For life has a patient way of bending the tallest p...
In the middle of something,
not the beginning, not the end,
when the coffee cools
and the door is half-open
and you can’t remember
what you walked into the room to find,
there it is:
life,
unannounced,
sitting at the table
with tears in one hand
and laughter in the other.
They look alike from far away.
Both shine.
Both spill.
Both leave you breathless
and slightly embarrassed
at how much you feel.
In the middle of something,
an argument, a Tuesday,
a crowded train of almost-dreams,
you catch yourself smiling
while your eyes are still wet.
What strange weather
to carry inside a chest.
Did you ever think of it?
Happiness, I mean.
Not the loud kind
with fireworks and declarations,
but the quiet one
that sits beside the ache
and doesn’t try to move it.
Happiness at last,
not as a finish line
or a flag on a distant hill,
but as a soft chair
pulled up next to your unfinished self.
It does not ask you
to stop crying.
It does not demand applause.
It simply stays
while you are in the middle of something,
and whispers,
This too.
This is living.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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