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 ...
Mercy came knocking once,
a pale wanderer draped in dawn,
with weary eyes and gentle hands,
carrying no sword,
only the burden of understanding.
But the wicked knew not her face.
Their hearts were citadels of stone,
where compassion died unnamed
and every wound became a weapon.
They barred the gates.
For mercy is a stranger
in the hearts of the wicked.
She walks their halls unseen,
a ghost among shadows,
whispering of forgiveness
to ears that worship vengeance.
They drink from poisoned wells
and call bitterness wisdom.
They sharpen grief into blades
and wear cruelty like a crown.
Where mercy offers a bridge,
they build a wall.
Where mercy kneels,
they strike.
And so she leaves quietly,
taking her light with her,
while darkness settles deeper
into chambers already cold.
The wicked do not fear mercy,
they fear what mercy reveals:
that beneath their iron masks,
beneath their kingdoms of pride,
beneath the ruins they call strength,
there lives a trembling truth
they dare not face.
For mercy is a mirror,
and the wicked cannot bear
their own reflection.
So they exile her,
again and again,
until her name becomes foreign
upon their tongues.
And in the end,
it is not mercy that abandons them,
it is they who spend their lives
running from the only guest
who ever came to save them.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
Comments