Skip to main content

When Your Hands Are Empty #poemofhope #faithpoetry #spokenwordpoetry

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...
Post a Comment

The Game You Thought I Can't Play #breakup #heartbreak #sadlove

I noticed the thirst on your arrival
before you ever spoke my name.

You did not come bearing love,
You came carrying absence,
a well with no bottom,
a hunger dressed in wounded light.

Your stories.
Ah, those fragile, trembling fables,
stitched from borrowed sorrow,
perfumed with practiced despair.
You have wandered before,
Haven’t you?
Sipping from gentle souls
until they ran dry.

You thought I would open
like the others.
Thought I would gather your broken glass
and bleed for the privilege.

But I saw the seams.

From the first tremor in your voice,
from the way your eyes calculated
while your mouth confessed,
I knew this was a theatre.
A story.

And so — I performed too.

I softened my gaze.
I tilted my head in mercy.
I let you believe
I was unraveling.

All the while
I was mapping you.

This was never love.
It was a strategy.

A board between us,
black and white truths,
where every word was a move
and every silence a trap.
A game.

You mistook my quietness
for foolishness,
and for a vacancy.
My restraint
for lack.

Perhaps to you, I looked fragile,
unarmed, unguarded,
a small figure waiting to be captured.

But even pawns
cross the board
and become something lethal.

I may seem poor in your measure,
useless in your arithmetic of advantage,

But I have never been impoverished in sight.
Never bankrupt in wisdom.
Never a fool.

I let you advance.
Let you believe the center was yours.
Let your arrogance bloom.

Because some victories
are sweetest
When the opponent never sees
The end is approaching.

You came to drain me.

But I am not a vessel without depth.
I am the ocean studying the storm.

And when the final piece falls,
You will understand.

I was never a prey.
I was patient.

And patience, when sharpened,
is checkmate.


© 2026 Gloria Penelope

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's Not About You #poemaday #poetryaddict #poem

The mountain never bowed to applause, Nor did the river pause for tears. The sky has carried a thousand storms Without remembering a single face. You are a traveler, not the road. A heartbeat, not the clock. The world was already speaking Long before it learned your name. Some goodbyes bloom from seasons, Not from mistakes. Some distances are drawn by time, Not by the hands that reach across them. Don't make yourself the author Of every unfinished sentence. Some pages are left blank Because silence belongs there. There is a strange mercy In not standing at the center Of every ending, Of every change. The sun does not rise to prove a point. The stars do not dim to send a message. Life simply unfolds, Wild, indifferent, beautiful. So carry your kindness, Leave your footprints lightly, And when the world turns without asking, Smile. It's not about you. That's how it is. © 2026 Gloria Penelope
Post a Comment
Read more

Where Her Heartbeat Remains #sadpoetry #poetryaddict #poemofgrief

She was here, for a moment too small for the clocks to measure, too brief for the world to understand, yet long enough to leave fingerprints upon a mother's soul. A baby girl. A whispered promise wrapped in fragile dreams, carried beneath a hopeful heart that had already imagined a thousand tomorrows. Then came the silence. A silence so heavy it bent the walls inward. A silence that settled inside empty rooms, inside folded blankets, inside the spaces where laughter was meant to grow. The mother wept. Not the gentle tears that fall with ordinary sadness. These were ancient tears. The kind born from a wound too deep for language, too sacred for explanation. She cried for first steps that would never mark the floor. For tiny hands that would never reach for hers. For lullabies that would remain unsung, their melodies trapped forever inside her trembling chest. Night after night, she gathered her grief like broken glass. Each memory, each dream, each unanswered prayer cut her anew. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Kind of Love That Stays #lovepoetry #poetrydaily #poetryaddict

I did not fall for you like people fall in movies. There was no thunder, no sudden music, no heaven opening its hands. You simply stayed a little longer than you should have. And somehow, that was enough. You learned the quiet parts of me, the places I keep locked, the old wounds I cover with ordinary conversation. You never asked me to explain the darkness. You sat beside it. That frightened me. Because I had spent so long believing love meant being saved, I did not know what to do with someone who could look at my brokenness and call it beautiful. Sometimes I wonder if we found each other too late. You carrying your ghosts, me carrying mine, two wounded souls pretending we were not recognizing each other. Our love was never soft. It had teeth. It lived in midnight conversations, in jealous silences, in the ache of almost losing one another. You could hurt me without raising your voice. I could break your heart with nothing more than the distance in my eyes. And still, when the night ...
Post a Comment
Read more