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Love's Dark Reflection #lovepoetry #poetrydaily #poemaday

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 ...
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It's Still Me #heartbreak #sadlove #sadpoetry #lovepoetry

It is still me,
the same woman who once unraveled
at the gentle tremble of your voice,
who mistook your presence
for something sacred,
something that would stay.

Still me,
the one who gathered your broken words
like they were rare jewels,
polished your silences
until they shone like meaning,
until I could call them love
without choking on the truth.

I am she,
the girl who danced in your shadows,
who laughed where you left emptiness,
who filled the quiet spaces
You never cared to understand.

You played me,
softly, almost beautifully,
like a melody half-written,
never meant to be finished,
only meant to be felt
and then abandoned.

I was your passing moment,
your borrowed warmth,
the softness you reached for
when loneliness grew too loud.

And I,
foolishly faithful to your illusion,
wrapped myself around your absence,
called it presence,
called it love,
called it forever
when it was never meant to last.

It is still me,
the same heart you held without care,
the same soul you touched
without intention.

You spoke in fragments,
in promises that dissolved before dawn,
Yet I built constellations from them,
mapped my entire sky
around words you never meant.

Tell me,
Was I ever more than convenience
dressed in affection?
Was I ever more than a quiet place
for your restless heart to land
before it wandered again?

Because I remember,
every almost,
every nearly,
every moment that felt like love
until it wasn’t.

I remember how you smiled
like truth lived in your eyes,
How you held me
like I was something worth keeping,
only to let me slip
through your hands
like I was never yours at all.

Still me,
the one who waited in the in-between,
who lingered in the spaces
You never claimed,
who loved you
in the language of permanence
while you spoke only of temporary things.

I bent for you,
softened my edges,
dimmed my light,
folded my worth
into something small enough
for you to hold without fear.

And you,
You called it love.

But love does not fracture a soul
and call it patience.
Love does not take
without ever giving shape in return.
Love does not leave a heart
questioning its own reflection.

Yet still,
It is me.

The same woman
who cried in silence
So no one would hear
how deeply she was breaking.

The same woman
who stitched herself together
with trembling hands,
threaded with pain,
sewn with the quiet understanding
that she had been fooled
in the name of something holy.

But look again,
Really look.

Because it is still me,
yes,
But I am no longer the same.

The tears you never saw
have carved strength into my bones.
The nights you left me empty
have taught me how to be whole on my own.

I have gathered every shattered piece
You left scattered in your wake,
And I have turned them
into something unbreakable.

Still me,
but no longer yours to confuse,
no longer yours to borrow,
no longer yours to undo.

I am the woman
who has learned the difference
between being wanted
and being valued.

The woman who no longer mistakes
temporary warmth
for eternal love.

So yes,
It is still me,
the one you once played with,
the one you once used,
the one who loved you
more honestly than you deserved.

But now,
I stand untouched by your illusions,
untethered from your half-truths,
unmoved by the memory of your hands.

It is still me,
only now,
I am no longer the story
You get to rewrite.


© 2026 Gloria Penelope

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