🕓 Last Updated: June 16, 2025, 11:18 pm (PH time)
A soul-stirring poem about invisible love, quiet suffering, and the hope for a love that embraces without shame. “Unloved Out Loud” explores the weight of emotional neglect and the longing to be seen, chosen, and loved without conditions.
As I sit down facing my computer in this dim, narrow room,
barely furnished, with not even the comfort of a warm bed,
no proper blanket, no soft pillow to call my own,
just a piece of cardboard and old cloth spread across the floor,
become my nightly refuge when weariness takes me.
As silence wraps around me
I watched my tears fall—
drawn by the ache of a memory I still carry:
a love I once held, who kept me hidden,
ashamed to be seen beside me,
denying what we were.
Though I was handed dimes to get by each day,
no silver can repair what was broken.
No loose change can ease the heaviness in my chest.
And still, I cry and resign.
Often. Quietly.
Why must love, when real, feel like abandonment?
I bow and pray that someday,
someone will love me without shame.
See me for who I am,
and choose me, proudly,
for all the days of our lives.
Please, let that day come.
This poem, “Unloved Out Loud,” reflects the silent pain of being in a one-sided or secret relationship, where love is kept hidden out of shame or fear. In the current state of the world, where norms and standards of beauty and aesthetics prevail and where poise and glamour enrich the validity of accepting a relationship openly, so to speak, the speaker lives in material poverty, sleeping on cardboard with only rags for comfort. Yet, it is not the physical hardship that hurts him the most, but the emotional invisibility. Despite receiving daily “dimes” or surface-level care, what he truly longs for is full acceptance, public love, and dignity.
More than that, the poem confronts the ache of rejection and denial, which is especially common in relationships where one is kept as a secret or even denied outright. Still, it ends on a note of hope—a quiet but powerful prayer for the day when love will no longer hide, and someone will choose him without fear, without shame, and for a lifetime.
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Regel Javines is the founder and editor of Philippine Pundit. Born in Leyte and shaped by struggle, he writes truth from the margins—where politics, faith, and life converge. A blogger since 2011, his work has appeared on global citizen journalism platforms. He currently serves as a consultant for the House of Representatives’ Congressional Assistance, Response, and Education (CARE) Program and as a Project Development Officer II at the DSWD.