Through the Fog

Author: Emery Lane Grey

  • Tolls on Burnt Bridges

    The hardest part of getting clean

    are all the damn apologies—

    the ones I owe,

    the ones I can’t say,

    the ones that taste like regret

    and old habits.

    It’s paying tolls on bridges

    I’ve already burnt,

    walking back through smoke

    I started myself,

    trying to make peace with ghosts

    who remember me at my worst.

    Recovery isn’t just staying sober.

    It’s swallowing pride,

    owning the wreckage,

    and learning how to rebuild

    with hands that once only knew

    how to destroy.

    And God,

    some days it feels impossible—

    but I’m still here,

    paying the tolls,

    crossing the ashes,

    trying anyway.

  • Spring Cleaning

    I spent the whole day in my head,

    doing a little spring cleaning—

    sweeping out old thoughts,

    rearranging the ruins,

    throwing away the versions of me

    that never learned how to stay.

    I dusted off memories

    I swore I’d forgotten,

    found feelings in corners

    I thought I’d buried on purpose.

    Funny how the mind keeps things—

    the good, the poison, the almost-healed.

    Funny how even the broken parts

    fight to be remembered.

    And yeah,

    I’m always dreaming—

    of better days,

    of quieter nights,

    of a life that doesn’t feel borrowed

    or blurred around the edges.

    Some days I clean.

    Some days I collapse.

    Some days I live entirely in thoughts

    because reality feels too sharp to touch.

    But I’m trying—

    even if the progress is silent,

    even if the work is invisible,

    even if the only one who sees the difference

    is me.

  • For My Dad

    When I was little,

    I watched you like a storm I couldn’t predict.

    I loved you,

    but I was scared of you too—

    the tone in your voice,

    the weight of your silence,

    the way the room changed when you walked in.

    I thought love meant waiting to be noticed,

    trying to be small,

    trying to be good enough

    for the version of you

    that didn’t always show up.

    As I got older,

    the fear turned into anger

    because being scared of you hurt less

    than still wanting you to see me.

    I said I hated you,

    but I didn’t—

    I just didn’t know how to love someone

    who felt a million miles away

    even when you were right in front of me.

    And Mom always said

    we fought so much

    because we’re just alike—

    same fire, same walls,

    same stubborn need to win the argument

    instead of admit we were hurt.

    We lost years to misunderstanding.

    To pride.

    To wounds neither of us had the words to name.

    But time has a strange way

    of softening the edges we once bled on.

    Somewhere between growing up

    and growing tired of carrying old ghosts,

    I learned the truth:

    you weren’t the villain,

    you were a broken man trying to love

    in a world that never taught you how.

    And now—

    now we talk.

    Now we laugh.

    Now I can sit beside you

    without bracing for impact.

    And I’m grateful—

    not because the past didn’t hurt,

    but because we didn’t let it win.

    I don’t love you because you were perfect.

    I love you because we both changed.

    Because we both stayed long enough

    to learn each other again.

    Because I finally get to say this

    without fear, without anger, without a knot in my chest:

    I’m glad you’re still here.

    And I’m glad I am too.

  • The Cost of Living

    The cost of my living

    was more than I planned.

    So I held the needle

    like a gun in my hand.

    Not outta courage —

    outta exhaustion.

    Outta that please-make-it-stop kind of silence

    that burns louder than any scream.

    Even now — clean —

    my hands still remember the weight.

    They twitch when the world gets heavy,

    like muscle memory don’t know I’m trying to live.

    They call this recovery.

    But it feels like standing

    in the ashes of a house I built myself

    and telling my lungs,

    “Go on. Breathe.

    It’s safe now.”

    But it never feels safe, does it?

    I miss the numb.

    I miss the nothing.

    But I want the morning more.

    I want the shaking and the sunlight

    and the proof —

    the proof that I can outlive

    my own escape route.

    Yeah, the cost of living is still high,

    but I’m paying it differently now.

    One breath.

    One truth.

    One trembling day at a time.

    And I’m still here —

    still here —

    still paying.

    Still worth the price.

  • The Comfort of My Mother

    I miss the comfort of my mother,

    the way her voice could quiet storms

    that the world never even saw coming.

    There was a time

    when her hands could fix anything—

    a scraped knee,

    a cracked heart,

    a day that felt too heavy to hold.

    Now the world presses harder,

    and I’m older,

    and she can’t protect me from it.

    But I still find myself wishing

    I could crawl back into that kind of safety—

    the kind that didn’t ask for explanations,

    that didn’t measure strength

    by how much pain you could hide.

    I miss her voice,

    the way she said my name

    like it was still small enough to save.

    I miss the comfort

    of knowing I didn’t have to carry everything.

    The weight of the world is lonely.

    And sometimes,

    all I want

    is my mother’s arms

    and a reason

    not to be brave for a little while.

  • Happiness in Sobriety (I Still Miss the High)

    Photo Credit: Frankie Cordoba

    They don’t tell you this part—

    sobriety doesn’t erase the memories.

    I still miss the high.

    I miss the numb,

    the blur,

    the way the world melted just long enough

    for me to forget I was hurting.

    There are days I crave the nothingness,

    days when pain feels louder than progress,

    when the urge whispers,

    “One more time won’t kill you.”

    But I know better—

    it almost did.

    More than once.

    Sobriety isn’t a clean break.

    It’s a war with the version of myself

    who still thinks relief comes in liquid,

    in powder,

    in pills,

    in poison that used to feel like peace.

    I don’t stay sober because I stopped wanting the high.

    I stay sober because I finally realized

    the high never loved me back.

    It just made the fall quieter.

    It made the pain delayed—

    not gone.

    Now happiness is different.

    It’s small.

    Subtle.

    Hard-earned.

    It comes in mornings I don’t regret,

    in nights I remember,

    in breathing that doesn’t taste like escape.

    I don’t always feel strong.

    But I feel present.

    And maybe that’s what living really is—

    missing the high

    and still choosing the heartbeat.

  • Choking on Words

    I’m choking on words

    I should have never thought of—

    the kind that burn going down

    and linger in the chest

    long after the moment’s gone.

    I’ve swallowed too many truths

    just to keep the peace,

    bit my tongue until it bled

    trying not to say your name.

    Some thoughts were never meant to be spoken,

    but they still echo—

    hollow and loud,

    like ghosts in an empty room.

    If you could see inside my mind,

    you’d find all the things

    I wish I’d never felt—

    and all the things

    I still do.

    So I breathe around the ache,

    let silence become my apology.

    Some words destroy when spoken,

    others destroy when kept.

    Either way,

    I’m still choking.

  • Wake-Up Call

    I’m waiting for my wake-up call,

    the moment everything finally clicks,

    the scene where I make sense again

    instead of feeling like a stain

    on the life I’m trying to live.

    Everything feels like my fault,

    even the things I never controlled.

    I’ve learned to apologize

    for the weather,

    for silence,

    for simply existing in the room.

    People say “stop blaming yourself,”

    but they don’t see the replay in my head,

    the way every memory sharpens

    into something I did wrong.

    I keep waiting for something to change,

    for the pain to loosen its grip,

    for the world to send a sign

    that I’m not the reason everything breaks.

    But maybe the call’s not coming.

    Maybe no one’s going to shake me awake,

    pull me out,

    or rewrite the story for me.

    Maybe this is the truth:

    the world won’t save me.

    No one’s coming to fix what I carry.

    And if I keep waiting…

    I’ll drown in the waiting.

    So no—

    there is no wake-up call.

    Just me.

    Still breathing.

    Still breaking.

    Still here in the dark—

    and the only way out

    is by choosing to move

    even when nothing in me wants to.

  • Proud of Me

    I used to wait for someone else

    to tell me I was doing enough—

    like pride only counted

    if it came from outside of me.

    But I’ve lived too many battles

    nobody saw,

    survived nights

    no one clapped for,

    and healed wounds

    that never got applause.

    So now, being proud

    means something different.

    It means I don’t need an audience

    to honor my effort.

    It means I can look in the mirror—

    tired, messy, scarred—

    and say,

    “You didn’t quit.

    That’s worth something.”

    I’m proud of the way I keep breathing

    even when it feels like drowning.

    Proud of the things I had to unlearn

    just to stay alive.

    Proud of the softness I never let the world steal,

    even when it tried.

    Pride, to me,

    isn’t perfection.

    It’s proof.

    Proof that I’m still here,

    still trying,

    still building a life

    I don’t want to escape from.

    And maybe nobody else sees it,

    maybe nobody else says it—

    but I do.

    And that’s enough now.

    That counts.

    I’m proud of me.

    And that’s the first voice I’m choosing to believe.

  • I’m Not the Villain

    I’m done being the monster in a story

    I never wrote.

    I’m done carrying the weight

    of every broken thing

    like it cracked because I breathed wrong.

    I’m not the villain

    just because I’m tired.

    Just because I bleed quietly.

    Just because I stopped pretending

    the hurt was “character building.”

    I’m not the reason people leave—

    they just didn’t want to stay

    in a world that didn’t revolve around them.

    They called my pain “too much”

    because it couldn’t be fixed

    with a hug or a quote or a Bible verse.

    I’m not the poison.

    I’m the aftermath.

    The proof that someone else’s damage

    landed on me first.

    I am not cold—

    I just learned the hard way

    that warmth gets taken from people like me

    without anyone noticing the theft.

    So no—

    I’m not the villain.

    I’m the one who crawled through the ashes,

    patched the wounds myself,

    and still got blamed

    for starting the fire.

    If that makes me hard,

    if that makes me bitter,

    if that makes me “difficult”—

    Then good.

    Let the ones who broke me

    choke on their version of the story.

    I’m done apologizing

    for surviving a war they never saw.