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My Contest Entries - The Silence After | Penana
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My Contest Entries
ISSUE #5
Author: ツ Tenzy ツ
My Contest Entries
Author: ツ Tenzy ツ
ISSUE #5
The Silence After
No Plagiarism!FSDRO8CVK0yYsfxtbZnSposted on PＥNAＮＡ

Contest Title: The weight of an unspoken goodbye.

---

I held your name

like a flame cupped in trembling hands—

too afraid of the wind,

too afraid of myself.

186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZqaiKc83O

The night you left,

the world did not shatter—

it simply folded inwards,

a quiet implosion

that only I could hear.

186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSrNZREAbDZ

I walked through rooms

where your laughter once lived,

and the walls stared back at me

with blank, merciless silence.

186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsj0eZq3Na4

I wished for numbness,

prayed for the mercy of emptiness.

But grief is cruel—

it doesn’t burn,

it lingers like frost,

slowly devouring every corner of your skin

until even breathing feels borrowed.

186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡApZLdN8k6f

I tell myself,

if I could just turn the switch,

shut off the heart,

silence the echoes—

maybe I could learn to stand

without collapsing into memory.

186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSFu48hd9rw

But the truth is—

even in this loneliness,

even in this hollow where you used to be,

I still love you.

And it is that love—

wild, unbearable, unkillable—

that keeps me here,

longing for a tomorrow

you will never see.

216.73.216.241

ns216.73.216.241da2
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My Contest Entries
General
Prose
Fantasy
Last updated: May 12, 2026
Total word count: 7,520
Total reading time: 35 Minutes
Writer:
ツ Tenzy ツ
poetry shortstories anthology prompts creativewriting contestentries originalworks tenzywrites authorcollection penanacontest mywords
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