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 ...
It is that month again,
when love rehearses its entrance
beneath borrowed lights.
February arrives draped in velvet red,
perfumed with roses that bloom on schedule,
while storefront hearts beat
to the rhythm of commerce.
Affection becomes an exhibition.
Promises glitter like temporary gold.
And suddenly,
those who forgot your name in January
remember it in crimson ink.
Love wears many colors now,
red for passion,
pink for softness,
white for innocence,
but rarely the quiet, steady hue
of truth.
Feelings, once buried,
rise like ghosts
just for this appointed day.
Old flames flicker.
Lonely hearts echo louder.
Words long unsent
find their way to trembling screens.
Yet wisdom whispers.
Not every rose carries fragrance.
Not every confession carries weight.
Not every “forever.”
has survived a season.
Some loves appear only on calendars,
arriving with chocolates and rehearsed devotion,
departing before the month turns.
And even food joins the celebration,
tables dressed in sweetness,
desserts shaped like desire,
hunger disguised as romance.
But hunger is not love.
And spectacle is not substance.
So walk gently through this painted month.
Let your heart remain open,
but guarded by clarity.
Not every offered love
wears reality beneath its colors.
Some hearts bloom daily.
Others bloom only
on the fourteenth.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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