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When Your Hands Are Empty #poemofhope #faithpoetry #spokenwordpoetry

There will be a season when you have done all you know to do and still, nothing. No answer at the door. No sudden change. No sign in the sky telling you that tomorrow will be kinder. Just you, your unanswered prayer, and the strange silence that makes you question whether God is still listening. He is. Do not mistake silence for absence. Some of God's deepest work happens without making a sound. Roots grow in darkness. Healing happens beneath skin. Morning begins long before the window knows there is light. And somewhere beyond what you can see, your life is being moved by hands you cannot follow. So do not abandon your faith because you cannot trace God's footsteps. You were never promised a clear view. You were given enough light for the next step. Take it. Even if your knees shake. Even if your heart has questions your mouth is afraid to ask. Take it. Faith is not a life without uncertainty. It is waking up with uncertainty beside you and refusing to let it choose your direc...
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Where Love Was Only an Act #sadlove, #poetryaddict, #sadpoetry

There are places
where hatred does not scream.

It smiles.

It sits across the table,
asks how you are,
remembers your birthday,
and says, I love you
with a mouth that has already
learned the shape of betrayal.

We became very good at pretending.

Good clothes.
Good photographs.
Good stories for people
who never stayed long enough
to see the cracks.

We smiled beside each other
while something poisonous
quietly grew between us.

No one noticed.

Why would they?

We looked happy.

And happiness, these days,
is often just a photograph
taken at the right angle.

You held my hand in public
as though you were afraid
the world might discover
you hated me.

I held yours
because I was still hoping
the person I loved
was somewhere inside you.

Perhaps that was my mistake.

I mistook performance
for devotion.

You brought me flowers
with one hand
and planted betrayal
with the other.

You whispered promises
while leaving little knives
between the words.

I did not see them at first.

Love makes poor detectives
of the people who trust it.

So I defended you.

I explained your distance.
Forgave your silences.
Called your cruelty
a wound you had not healed.

I kept finding excuses
for the person
who was quietly becoming
my reason to leave.

And you kept acting.

You kissed my forehead
when your heart was already
somewhere else.

You said, forever,
as though the word
had never meant anything.

Maybe you never loved me.

Maybe you only loved
the way I made you look.

The couple everyone envied.

The perfect life.

The carefully arranged illusion
with nothing real
behind the curtains.

But betrayal does not arrive
like thunder.

It is planted.

A small seed
in a private conversation.

A secret glance.

A deleted message.

A lie repeated
until it begins to feel
like truth.

Then one day
the roots reach the surface.

And suddenly,

every beautiful memory
changes its face.

The flowers were not flowers.

They were apologies
you never meant.

The late-night promises
were not promises.

They were rehearsals
for the lies you would tell me later.

Even the way you held me,
I remember it differently now.

I thought you were holding me close.

Perhaps you were only
holding the story together.

And that is the moment
something inside me died,

not when I discovered
there was someone else,

but when I realized
there had been a stranger
beside me
every night
wearing the face
I trusted most.

I think that is what hurts most.

Not that you betrayed me.

But that while I was building
a home inside your heart,

you were quietly
building a door
for someone else.

And still,
I do not hate you.

I hate the version of myself
that kept mistaking pain
for proof of love.

I hate the evenings
I spent defending
what should have been
indefensible.

I hate how beautifully
we lied to everyone.

Most of all,
I hate how convincing
we became.

Because sometimes
the darkest place
is not a loveless heart.

It is a heart
that knows exactly
how to imitate love.

And perhaps
that is where hatred exists,

not in the goodbye,

not in the betrayal,

but in the terrible moment
you look back at everything
you once called love

and realize

you were the only one
who was ever telling the truth.

© 2026 Gloria Penelope

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