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 was not born into softness.
No gentle hands shaped my mornings,
no warm certainty wrapped around my nights.
I was raised in the quiet language of lack,
where empty plates spoke louder than voices,
and silence meant there was nothing left to give.
Childhood did not bloom for me.
It withered early,
like a flower denied the mercy of rain.
I learned to measure days
not by joy,
but by survival,
counting breaths between burdens,
counting hunger as if it were time itself.
There were nights
when the dark felt heavier than the sky,
pressing down on my chest
until even dreams refused to come.
And when sleep did find me,
it carried no peace,
only shadows stitched with fear,
echoes of a life already too tired to begin.
I grew older,
but nothing grew lighter.
Adulthood did not arrive as freedom,
it came as another chain,
forged from the same cold iron
that bound my youth.
The world told me to rise,
to become,
to build something from nothing,
but they never showed me how
to build with broken hands.
Poverty lives in me now
like an ancient root,
buried deep beneath bone and breath,
feeding on every fragile hope I plant.
I try to tear it out,
I dig with bleeding will,
with stubborn defiance,
but it clings,
it tightens,
it reminds me
that some things are not easily undone.
Each day, I step into the world
with quiet desperation stitched into my skin.
I search for work
as though I am searching for air,
knocking on doors that do not see me,
speaking words that fall
like dust in empty rooms.
I tell myself
to keep going.
Even when my legs ache
from walking paths that lead nowhere,
even when my voice grows thin
from asking,
from hoping,
from waiting.
I gather what little I have,
stretching it, bending it, breaking it,
trying to make it enough,
trying to make it last
just one more day.
But life…
life feels like a storm
that chose me as its center.
Unfair, relentless,
without reason or apology.
I watch others move forward,
their paths lit with chances I never knew,
while I remain here,
caught in a cycle that does not loosen,
a story that refuses to change its ending.
And there are moments,
quiet, dangerous moments,
when the weight becomes too much,
when the darkness whispers
that maybe this is all there is,
that maybe I was meant
to carry this forever.
But even then…
Even in the deepest hollow
where light should not exist,
something in me refuses to die.
A fragile flicker,
barely alive,
yet unyielding.
Hope.
Not bright,
not loud,
not certain,
but stubborn.
It does not promise salvation.
It does not erase the pain.
It only remains,
a quiet rebellion against despair.
It tells me
to take one more step,
to breathe one more breath,
to believe, however faintly,
that something beyond this suffering
might still be waiting.
So I carry it.
Through hunger that gnaws like fire,
through nights that swallow my strength,
through days that offer nothing
but the same unbroken struggle,
I carry it.
Not because I am unafraid,
not because I am unbroken,
but because without it…
There would be nothing left of me.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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