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...
No mercy within,
only the quiet arithmetic of harm,
where evil moves in polished shoes
and pretence carries the lantern.
It is the gentle voice
that sharpens the blade,
the smiling mouth
that buries the oath.
Thus the path is led,
not by stars,
but by shadows trained to look like light.
And still the road narrows.
It tightens into a corridor of thorns,
each step a covenant with pain,
each breath, a wager
against the dark.
Life though,
what a bitter tutor.
How do we live
in a world so fluent in cruelty?
Where trust lies pale and unattended,
a fallen monument no one tends;
where truth survives only in thin ribbons,
fragile as winter sunlight,
threaded through words
that tremble
because they are not born of the heart,
oh no.
Not from the heart.
From habit.
From hunger.
From the instinct to endure.
We speak in measured syllables,
ration our faith,
hide our tenderness
as though it were contraband.
We learn to walk the narrow way
with bleeding feet
and call it wisdom.
Yet somewhere,
beneath the thorns,
beneath the staged intentions,
beneath the long apprenticeship of distrust,
a stubborn ember refuses extinction.
For even in a cruel world,
to ask how we live
is already an act of defiance.
To seek truth,
though it be thin as a whisper,
is to widen the path by one breath.
Life though,
merciless, magnificent paradox,
it wounds,
it withholds,
it deceives,
and still
it waits to see
whether we will answer darkness
with its own language,
or dare—against reason,
to speak from the heart.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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