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 ...
Call me a fool.
It is easier for you
than admitting
I chose silence
when I could have spoken.
You mistook my patience
for ignorance.
My kindness
for weakness.
My quiet heart
for an empty mind.
You believed
I could not see
the whispers behind my back,
the borrowed smiles,
the hands that reached for me
only when they needed something.
I saw it all.
Every lie
wrapped in politeness.
Every laugh
meant to wound.
Every promise
that dissolved
the moment it became inconvenient.
I was taken for granted
like the air in the room,
noticed only
when absent.
Forgotten
when present.
So you called me naïve.
You thought
I never understood.
Perhaps it comforted you
to believe that.
So I let you.
I let you think
you had outsmarted me.
I let you wear
the crown of victory
in battles
I never wished to fight.
Not because I was defeated,
but because
peace was worth more
than proving you wrong.
Some wars
cost too much.
Some victories
leave the soul exhausted.
So I chose
to lose your arguments
instead of losing myself.
You saw surrender.
I saw freedom.
You saw weakness.
I saw restraint.
You saw a fool.
I saw a heart
that refused
to become cruel
just to satisfy
another person's pride.
One day,
you may discover
the difference
between someone
who knows nothing
and someone
who knows everything
yet says nothing.
Until then,
I will continue
to wear the mask
you gave me.
Let them laugh.
Let them judge.
Let them believe
they have measured
the depth of my soul.
For the ocean
has never argued
with those
who mistake it
for a puddle.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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