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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...
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Not Your Smile #sadpoetry #poem #freeverse

Not the tender arc of a smile born of light,
but that crooked, self-serving crescent you wear,
a grin that feeds on silence,
that drinks from the well of its own reflection,
curved not by joy, but by a hunger unnamed.

It rests upon your lips like a quiet conspiracy,
a subtle betrayal of the soul’s softer language,
where warmth once lingered
but now retreats into corners unvisited,
afraid of what it might awaken.

Behind it all, behind it,
a wilderness of thought, untamed and relentless,
where reason falters, and shadows take root.
There, your mind becomes a chamber of murmurs,
echoing with fragments too jagged to speak aloud.

They coil in silence, those thoughts,
serpentine and patient,
sliding between the folds of your conscience,
whispering of things undone,
yet aching to be done.

Cruelty does not arrive with thunder.
No, it approaches gently,
knocking with delicate persistence
upon the fragile doors of your restraint.
Tap… tap… a rhythm so faint,
it masquerades as curiosity.

And you listen.
You always listen.

There is a strange intimacy in that darkness,
a closeness between impulse and permission,
where lines blur, and meaning dissolves,
and the soul, once certain,
begins to question its own reflection.

Kindness, in your world, has grown thin,
not vanished, no…
but stretched like a fragile thread
across a widening void.

It trembles at the slightest disturbance,
frays at the edges of your indifference,
barely holding form
in a place where warmth no longer lingers.

Once, it may have bloomed within you,
soft as morning light,
unassuming, unguarded.
But now it survives only in remnants,
faint impressions of what once was whole.

Your grin conceals this erosion well.
It speaks of control, of composure,
of someone untouched by inner storms.
Yet beneath its surface
lies a quiet unraveling,
a descent not marked by chaos,
but by a chilling stillness.

For madness is not always loud.
Sometimes it is refined,
draped in elegance,
hidden behind measured words
and carefully chosen silence.

And so you walk among the unaware,
bearing that grin like a signature,
a mark of something unresolved,
something watching from within.

Not your smile,
for that would betray a flicker of light.
But this… this is something else entirely:
a mirror turned inward,
reflecting only the shadows
You have chosen to keep.


© 2026 Gloria Penelope

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