There was a house inside my chest Where every window had been broken, Curtains hanging like tired prayers, Doors swollen shut from years of storms That no one noticed. The floors remembered every footstep Of grief that walked barefoot through me. Every goodbye stayed like dust On shelves I no longer touched. Even laughter sounded abandoned there. I became familiar with darkness. Not the kind that visits at night— The kind that moves into your bones, Unpacks its sorrow, And calls itself home. People said, “Time heals.” But time only watched me drown quietly While pretending I still knew how to swim. I smiled with exhausted eyes, Spoke in half-hearted breaths, Carried entire wars in my ribs While the world mistook silence For strength. Hope left slowly. Not like lightning. Like winter. One cold hour at a time. Until mornings felt meaningless, Mirrors became strangers, And my soul sat alone Like an orphan waiting for a name. Yet healing, Healing did not arrive beautifully. It did not come...
There once was a genius renowned,
For thoughts that were tightly wound,
He could map every star,
Name planets afar,
Yet tripped on completely flat ground.
He’d lecture on time with a grin,
Explain where the universe’s been,
With charts so precise
They’d make ice feel like spice.
Then forget what room he was in.
His lab was a marvel of mess,
Organized chaos at best,
With wires and notes,
Half-written quotes,
And a sandwich mid-experiment test.
“Behold!” he would proudly declare,
Adjusting his lab-coated flair,
“This device that I’ve made
Will not… well, it may...
But mostly it shouldn’t catch fire there.”
He’d flip a switch labeled “DO NOT,”
Then say, “Let us see what we’ve got,”
A rumble, a flash,
A scientifically loud crash.
“Ah,” he’d say, “that was planned, oddly not.”
A toaster once gained self-awareness,
And spoke with alarming self-fairness,
“Your logic is weak,
Your wiring is bleak.”
It said with mechanical rareness.
He nodded. “Fascinating tone.”
Then tried to improve it alone.
It ejected his bread,
Then loudly it said,
“I refuse to be used for your scone.”
He built a machine for “efficiency,”
Which mostly produced inconsistency,
It sorted his files,
Then laughed for a while...
A breakthrough in… mild hostility.
His colleagues would watch from afar,
And whisper, “He’s gone a bit far,”
Yet still they would stay,
(At a safe distance, okay)
In case he discovered a star.
One day, he declared with delight,
“I’ve finally gotten it right!”
The room gave a shake,
The floor shook...
“Or at least… approximately right.”
The ceiling said goodbye that day,
A chair made a bold getaway,
The machine sang a song,
Entirely too long...
About bread in a philosophical way.
Yet still, through the sparks and the smoke,
He stood there and thoughtfully spoke,
“Each failure, you see,
Is progress to me...
Though admittedly, some are a joke.”
He paused, then adjusted his stance,
“I simply refine and enhance,
Ignore what explodes,
Rewrite the codes...
And try not to blow up my pants.”
So here is the genius so grand,
With brilliance quite close at hand,
Who proves beyond doubt,
Without figuring out,
That maybe… just maybe…
He should not be left in command.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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