Shadows grow long
when words run short.
The pauses do the talking
gentler, safer,
less likely to offend.
Silence, that loyal companion,
has learned the art
of keeping peace
where honesty once lived.
We sit across rooms,
exchange polite laughter,
pretend it’s comfort
when it’s really distance
wearing good manners.
Funny, isn’t it?
How we call it understanding
when it’s really just
mutual pretending.
I sat in silence,
thinking back to when
I once believed
love had a face
eyes that twinkled,
cheeks softly flushed,
and a smile
that set my world aflame.
But time,
in its quiet mercy,
taught me otherwise.
Love, I learned,
was never a person
only an illusion
I longed to touch.
Now, as shadows
fall on years gone by,
I watch
as time lays my soul to rest.
I let go
of the hope I clung to,
and finally see
love never had a face.
It had a lesson.
It walks in first.
Not the thought.
Not the man.
The ego.
That quiet rehearsal that straightens the smile, adjusts the tie, and clears the throat before the heart even catches up.
It knows how to fill a room, sometimes before the person behind it even arrives.
We all do it, that quick glance in the mirror before stepping into a meeting, a conversation, a crowd.
Not to see how we look, but how we’ll be seen.
Between confidence and performance, something sneaks in practiced, polished, safe.
And that’s where it begins.
When Ego Enters First
Ego doesn’t always wear arrogance.
Sometimes, it hides behind charm or intellect.
It can be polite, even gracious. It knows the right moments to nod, to smile, to laugh just enough.
It rarely announces itself.
Ego doesn’t storm in shouting, “Look at me.”
It leans in and whispers, “Make sure they see you.”
It feeds off the smallest things, the approving glance, the “so true” in the middle of a meeting, the laughter that lands just right.
Harmless, we think.
But little by little, it replaces authenticity with performance.
The Rehearsed Applause
In boardrooms, in friendships, even in love, we start speaking from scripts written by expectation.
Every word gets dressed before it’s spoken.
Every silence rehearsed before it lands.
And the room?
It bends.
Not toward truth, but toward whoever sounds most sure.
It’s not that we mean to pretend… it’s that ego convinces us that being liked is safer than being real.
So we perform.
A little here, a little there, until we can’t quite remember which version of us showed up first.
The Polite “So True”
We’ve all seen that person who fills every space confident, composed, always in control.
And sometimes, if we pause long enough, we’ll realise ~ we’ve been that person too.
Ego lives in those micro-moments of validation we chase, the nods, the polite laughs, the need to have the last word.
And when it takes the lead, something inside us follows smaller.
Quieter.
Less whole.
After the Applause
Then the room empties.
The noise fades.
The performance ends.
And we’re left wondering, who was I in there?
Ego is brilliant at entrances but terrible at goodbyes.
It leaves behind exhaustion, a quiet ache, and that search for the next applause.
The irony is, the louder ego gets, the softer truth becomes.
We don’t need to win every conversation to be heard.
We don’t need to fill every silence to matter.
It’s not the noise people remember.
It’s the stillness that follows you.
Standing Before the Mirror
The man or woman, in the mirror is always worth another look.
Not to fix the mask, but to meet the eyes behind it.
When we strip away the polish, the applause, the lines we’ve practised to fit in we find something far more powerful.
Something real.
Ego will always whisper.
But authenticity? It doesn’t need to.
It speaks in silence.
In how we listen.
How we show up.
How we make others feel seen, not outshined.
Because when the lights dim and the applause fades, the world won’t remember the performance.
It’ll remember the presence.
Maybe that’s where we all begin again ~ before the man.
Was any of it real?
I think back…
to how it all began.
The flirtation.
The presence.
The care
gentle, deliberate.
A slow recruiting,
into something
I thought was connection…
but turned out to be
the final nail
sealing my soul.
The red flags
I saw them.
I just chose not to.
Gave you the benefit of doubt,
out of respect,
out of belief
that people mean well.
But now,
as I sit here
connecting the dots
I see it for what it was.
I wasn’t a choice.
I was a move.
Another pawn
in your game of chess.
I hope you got what you wanted.
Truly.
Because life has a funny way
of circling back.
And what you give
you always get back.
Equal,
or more.
I grieved
not the end,
but the unbecoming of me.
Love unraveled,
trust thinned to air,
belief scattered like dust in rain.
Nothing was mine to hold,
and yet,
I stood
breathing through the spin,
learning the stillness in surrender.
What was lost
was not my wholeness
only the version of me
that forgot I could begin again.
Now,
I walk the quiet road,
toughened by consequence,
softened by grace,
becoming
again.
