Mercy came knocking once, a pale wanderer draped in dawn, with weary eyes and gentle hands, carrying no sword, only the burden of understanding. But the wicked knew not her face. Their hearts were citadels of stone, where compassion died unnamed and every wound became a weapon. They barred the gates. For mercy is a stranger in the hearts of the wicked. She walks their halls unseen, a ghost among shadows, whispering of forgiveness to ears that worship vengeance. They drink from poisoned wells and call bitterness wisdom. They sharpen grief into blades and wear cruelty like a crown. Where mercy offers a bridge, they build a wall. Where mercy kneels, they strike. And so she leaves quietly, taking her light with her, while darkness settles deeper into chambers already cold. The wicked do not fear mercy, they fear what mercy reveals: that beneath their iron masks, beneath their kingdoms of pride, beneath the ruins they call strength, there lives a trembling truth they dare not face. For merc...
I ache as though pierced by steel,
yet my body stands unbroken,
no blood to testify,
no scar to translate the suffering.
The wound lives where eyes cannot reach
a silent hemorrhage of the heart.
My chest carries a constant unrest,
a grief that refuses sleep.
Peace has fled my inner chambers,
leaving behind a hollow echo
where hope once knelt and breathed.
My soul is not shattered in violence,
but dismantled slowly,
piece by piece,
by hands skilled in quiet harm.
I was spent like something disposable,
used, then discarded without ceremony,
my worth measured only
by how much could be extracted from me.
Compensation came as crumbs of mercy,
food offered not as respect,
but as one feeds the forgotten,
as though I were a stranger to dignity,
homeless beneath the roof of my labor.
What a merciless master you were,
to turn authority into cruelty,
to confuse command with ownership,
and power with the right to diminish.
Yet even now, unseen and aching,
I carry what you could not consume:
a voice bruised but unextinguished,
a soul wounded yet aware,
and the quiet certainty
that no man who feeds on another’s suffering
ever truly stands tall.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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