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...
She came into my life like quiet light,
not loud, not demanding,
just steady,
just real.
A presence that softened the sharp edges in me,
a warmth I did not earn,
a grace I did not understand.
But I was not built for gratitude then.
I saw her kindness as something to use,
something to take,
something that would always remain
no matter how I treated it.
I never looked at her with honest eyes.
Never stood before her with a clean heart.
Every word I gave was half-shadow,
every promise carried the weight of deceit.
I thought I was clever.
I thought I was in control.
Greed grew in me like a sickness,
slow at first,
then consuming.
I wanted more than I deserved,
more than I needed,
more than she could give
without breaking.
And still… she stayed.
That was the cruelest part.
She stayed while I twisted something sacred
into something hollow.
She stayed while I turned her presence
from blessing
into a burden.
Until one day,
she didn’t.
And the silence she left behind
was louder than anything I had ever known.
Now I walk with it.
This weight.
This curse.
It follows me in the quiet hours,
whispers in the dark,
echoes in every empty space
where she used to be.
I see her in things I cannot touch,
in moments that should feel whole
but collapse under memory.
I hear what I said,
what I didn’t say,
what I should have meant.
And it does not leave me.
It will not leave me.
Because I know,
this is not punishment without reason.
This is the consequence breathing beside me.
A reminder that I took something pure
and stained it with selfish hands.
A reminder that blessings
do not return once broken.
And still…
somewhere beneath the ruin,
there is one truth that burns:
This curse will not loosen its grip,
will not quiet its voice,
will not release my name
until I stand before her,
not as I was,
but as I should have been,
and speak the words
I was too empty to say
when she was still mine to lose.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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