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 ...
There is a darkness
that does not knock before entering.
It lingers quietly in corners,
sits beside me in silence,
follows me into crowded rooms,
and somehow still makes me feel alone.
Some nights it hangs above my head
like heavy storm clouds refusing to rain,
turning simple thoughts into wars
my mind never seems to win.
It whispers old fears back to life.
Reminds me of every mistake,
every wound,
every moment I tried to forget.
And no matter how loudly the world moves around me,
the darkness always knows how to make everything feel still.
People often think darkness looks dramatic.
But sometimes it looks ordinary.
Like smiling while feeling empty.
Like answering “I’m fine” automatically.
Like staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m.
with a mind too tired to keep fighting itself.
It follows quietly.
In exhaustion.
In overthinking.
In the pressure to keep surviving
even when the soul feels worn thin.
But somewhere inside all that darkness,
there is still a small stubborn light
that refuses to die.
A voice that softly says,
“Stay.”
“Rest.”
“Try again tomorrow.”
And maybe healing does not begin
when the darkness disappears completely.
Maybe healing begins
the moment someone realizes
they do not have to face it alone.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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