There is a place inside you No map has ever traced, a quiet room behind the ribs where light forgets to stay. No one sees it when you smile, No one hears it when you speak. It moves beneath your laughter like a river running deep. It is yours alone to carry, not carved for other hands, a language made of silence Only your soul understands. Some mornings it is heavier, a stone you cannot name, And still you rise and wear your life as if it were the same. But pain, it does not leave you when ignored or pushed away, it waits within the folds of time, it learns you day by day. It is not your enemy, though it cuts without a sound; it is the truth you buried but still lives underground. And yes, there are nights it breaks you, when endurance feels too wide, when even breath feels borrowed And there is nowhere left to hide. Yet somehow you continue, not because you do not fall, but because within the breaking You still answer life’s call. You learn to walk beside it, not beneath it, not above...
I'm slowly fading,
not all at once,
not enough for the world to notice,
just quietly,
like a shadow losing its shape
at the edge of dusk.
My heart grows weaker
With each passing day,
beating not with purpose
but with persistence,
as if it, too, is unsure
why it continue?
There was a time
it knew how to feel fully,
how to rise without fear,
How to carry light
without trembling beneath it.
Now it stutters,
hesitates,
like it’s learning how to exist
inside a body
that has forgotten how to live.
And my soul…
My soul has wandered.
It no longer asks for direction,
no longer waits for permission.
It drifts where it pleases,
pulled by something unseen,
something darker
than I ever meant to follow.
A path unfolds beneath me,
cold and endless,
lit not by hope
but by the faint glow
of everything I’ve lost.
And still,
I walk it.
Not because I want to,
But because I no longer know
How to turn back.
I am slowly fading.
I feel it
in the silence that grows louder,
in the emptiness that stretches wider,
in the way, even breathing
feels like effort.
Yet I am still breathing.
Isn’t that strange?
That a body can continue
while everything inside it
quietly unravels,
thread by fragile thread.
Each breath feels borrowed,
like time that was never meant for me.
Each moment feels uncertain,
like standing on the ground
that might give way
without warning.
And I don’t know
if I will survive this.
Not the way I was.
Not whole.
Not untouched.
There is a question
that lingers in every heartbeat:
How much of me will remain
By the time this ends?
But somewhere,
buried beneath the weight,
beneath the dark pull of this path,
beneath the fading,
There is still a whisper.
Small.
Almost gone.
But stubborn.
A quiet wish
that refuses to die.
I want my strength back.
Not the kind that pretends,
not the kind that hides the cracks,
but the kind that stands
even while breaking.
I want to feel steady again.
To breathe
without wondering if it will be enough.
To walk
without fearing where the ground might vanish.
I want to return
to something that feels like me,
or at least
to someone I can recognize.
So I keep breathing.
Even now.
Even here.
Even as I fade.
Because maybe,
just maybe,
There is still a version of me
waiting beyond this darkness,
not untouched,
not unscarred,
but alive.
And until I know for certain,
I will hold onto this fragile truth:
I am fading…
But I am not gone.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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