Through the Fog

Author: Emery Lane Grey

  • I Was High Then

    I was high then—

    I couldn’t face things

    the way they stood in front of me,

    bare and demanding.

    I needed the blur,

    the soft edges,

    the lie that told me

    tomorrow could wait.

    Reality was too sharp,

    asking questions I didn’t have answers for,

    holding mirrors I didn’t want to look into.

    So I floated above it,

    called it coping,

    called it freedom,

    anything but fear.

    I wasn’t chasing joy—

    I was running from myself,

    from the weight of being present

    in a life that hurt to touch.

    Now I see it clearer:

    I wasn’t weak,

    just overwhelmed.

    I didn’t want to disappear—

    I just didn’t know

    how to stay.

  • Lessons

    Everyone you meet

    has something to teach you—

    even the ones who stay a moment,

    even the ones who leave too soon.

    Some will show you kindness,

    soft as sunlight on tired skin.

    Some will show you strength,

    quiet and unspoken,

    the kind born from surviving.

    Others will show you pain—

    not to break you,

    but to uncover the places

    you still need to heal.

    Some will teach you patience,

    some will teach you boundaries,

    and a few rare souls

    will teach you love

    in a way you never knew existed.

    Every person is a chapter,

    every encounter a line—

    and whether you keep them

    or let them go,

    they shape you

    in ways you won’t see

    until later.

    Everyone you meet

    has something to teach you—

    and sometimes

    the lesson

    is simply

    who you’re becoming.

  • Disassociate

    I leave my body without moving.

    Eyes open, but I am elsewhere.

    The room blurs, voices stretch thin,

    and I hover just above myself

    like smoke that forgot its fire.

    Disassociation feels like safety,

    but it is also loss.

    A way of surviving the unbearable

    by not being there at all.

    Time folds in strange ways.

    Minutes dissolve,

    hours vanish,

    days pass like a dream

    I can’t quite remember

    but can’t wake from either.

    I watch my hands move,

    hear my mouth speak,

    but none of it belongs to me.

    I am vaguely familiar to myself,

    a stranger inhabiting my skin.

    And yet,

    this distance once saved me.

    It kept me alive when being present

    was too dangerous, too sharp, too much.

    But now, healing asks me to stay.

    To return,

    to feel,

    to sit inside my own body

    without slipping through its seams.

    Disassociation taught me survival.

    Presence will have to teach me living.

  • Hard on Myself

    I’m hard on myself

    in ways no one ever sees.

    I hold myself to standards

    I never asked anyone else to reach,

    carrying expectations

    that feel heavier than my own skin.

    People tell me to be gentle,

    to breathe,

    to give myself grace—

    for grace has been here all along.

    In a heart that remembers everything,

    In a mind that keeps score

    even when no one’s playing.

    I pick myself apart

    before the world ever gets the chance,

    as if hurting myself first

    will soften the blow

    of being human.

    I overthink,

    over-apologize,

    over-analyze every word

    I should’ve said differently.

    Every choice, every stumble

    feels like proof

    that I’m too much

    and not enough

    all at once.

    But I’m trying.

    Trying to loosen the grip,

    to unclench the jaw,

    to stop treating my heart

    like a battlefield.

    Trying to remember that growth

    isn’t supposed to be perfect—

    that healing is messy,

    and learning to love myself

    might look like failure

    before it looks like freedom.

    One day,

    I hope I look back

    and see someone who deserved

    so much more kindness

    than she ever gave herself.

    Until then,

    I’m learning—slowly—

    that softness isn’t weakness,

    and I don’t have to break

    to deserve peace.

  • The Hurt I Can’t Name

    Don’t tell me to soften it.

    Don’t tell me to pretty it up.

    The darkness in me isn’t gentle

    and it sure as hell isn’t poetic.

    Some nights the ache gets so loud

    I swear my skin hums with it,

    buzzing with a restlessness

    that wants out,

    wants release,

    wants something sharp enough

    to quiet the storm underneath.

    I pace the room like an animal

    looking for an escape hatch

    from my own ribs.

    Every breath burns.

    Every thought bruises.

    And the only language my pain speaks

    is urgency.

    I hate that I understand it.

    I hate that it calls to me

    in a voice that sounds like mine.

    I hate the part of me that listens.

    But I don’t give in.

    I just sit there, shaking,

    hands curled into fists,

    fighting a battle

    no one sees

    and no one applauds.

    And when the wave finally breaks,

    when the urge loosens its grip,

    I’m left exhausted,

    hollowed out,

    alive —

    but barely.

    Tell me again it’s “just a phase.”

    Tell me again to “think positive.”

    Tell me again that I’m “strong.”

    I’m not strong.

    I’m surviving myself

    one night at a time.

  • What I’d Leave Behind

    I would paint the walls

    with every beautiful thing I am

    and every terrible thing I’ve ever been —

    layered thick,

    no clean lines,

    no apology for the mess.

    Joy smeared beside regret,

    love dripping into shame,

    gold pressed hard

    against the bruised colors

    no one likes to look at too long.

    I wouldn’t fix the edges.

    I wouldn’t soften the truth.

    There would be laughter

    caught mid-breath,

    and grief so old

    it’s learned how to sit quietly.

    There would be nights

    I survived out of spite,

    and mornings

    I stayed for no good reason at all.

    It wouldn’t be pretty.

    It would be mine.

    A room that says:

    this person felt deeply,

    broke often,

    kept going anyway.

    A testament to contradictions —

    light bleeding into dark,

    dark refusing to erase the light.

    If anyone stood there long enough,

    they’d see it wasn’t destruction

    I was trying to leave behind —

    it was proof.

    Proof that I was here.

    That I contained multitudes.

    That even the terrible things

    never managed

    to erase the beautiful ones.

  • No Place for the Weary

    Photo Credit-Leon-Pascal Jc

    I rolled them 7’s

    with nothing to lose,

    the table cold,

    the night mean,

    and luck looking at me sideways

    like it knew exactly who I was.

    This ain’t no place

    for the weary kind —

    not for hearts that bruise easy,

    not for hands that shake

    when the stakes get high.

    Out here, pain is currency,

    and everyone’s broke

    before the first drink hits the glass.

    I’ve gambled with ghosts,

    traded my future for a flicker,

    dared the darkness

    to take its best shot.

    And every time,

    the world leans in close

    and whispers through its teeth,

    you sure you’re built for this?

    But I keep rolling,

    keep breathing through the smoke,

    keep standing in rooms

    that were never meant to soften for me.

    Because somewhere in the rubble

    of all I’ve survived,

    there’s a fire that won’t burn out,

    a stubbornness that refuses

    to bow to the night.

    I rolled them 7’s

    with nothing to lose —

    and maybe that’s the trick of it:

    when the world wants you broken,

    staying on your feet

    is the boldest bet you’ll ever make.

  • The Point of Faking Happy

    What’s the point of faking happy  

    when every laugh feels like a lie,  

    when every joke is just a decoy  

    to hide the part of me that wants to die.

    The mirror knows my real face,  

    the one that sags when no one sees,  

    the eyes that stare at ceilings,  

    begging night to cut me free.

    I say “I’m fine” like a password,  

    a code that keeps them from the truth,  

    because if they knew how loud it gets,  

    they’d hear the screaming of my youth.

    The point of faking happy  

    isn’t hope or some bright end.  

    It’s just a way to stall the fall,  

    to last one more day,  

    and call it “pretend.”

  • Can’t Save Myself From 5AM

    Can’t save myself from 5am—

    that thin, trembling hour

    when the night is almost gone

    but refuses to let go,

    and I’m caught between yesterday’s ghosts

    and tomorrow’s promises

    I don’t know how to keep.

    There’s something cruel

    about the quiet at that hour,

    how it magnifies every bruise

    I thought I’d healed,

    how it pulls old memories

    back into my hands

    like I’m meant to cradle them

    instead of bury them.

    I lie there, staring at the ceiling,

    watching the darkness pulse

    in slow, aching waves,

    feeling the weight of every thought

    I pretended didn’t hurt.

    It’s the kind of loneliness

    that doesn’t shout—

    it whispers,

    it lingers,

    it crawls under my skin

    and makes a home there.

    5am is where the truth comes out—

    the truth I hide in daylight,

    the truth I swallow before speaking.

    It’s where the what-ifs return,

    where the could’ve-beens settle

    in the corners of my chest,

    where the world feels too wide

    for someone who feels

    so unbearably small.

    I try to breathe through it,

    try to remind myself

    that morning always comes,

    that light always finds a way in—

    but some nights,

    the dark wraps around me

    like it knows my name,

    like it’s claiming something

    I’m too tired to fight for.

    Everyone else is dreaming,

    and I’m wide awake,

    trying to stitch myself together

    before the sun finds me

    broken again.

  • Life Is a Drop in the Ocean

    Life is a drop in the ocean—

    small, trembling,

    lost before it ever knows

    it was falling.

    We spend our days

    trying to matter,

    trying to make ripples

    in a world that swallows sound

    and swallows sorrow

    with the same quiet indifference.

    A single drop

    against a limitless tide—

    that’s what we are.

    Fleeting.

    Fragile.

    Here and then gone,

    folded into something

    too big to understand.

    But maybe

    that’s the strange beauty of it—

    how one drop still shimmers

    before it sinks,

    how it reflects a whole sky

    in the moment before release,

    how it becomes part

    of something vaster

    than it could ever imagine.

    Maybe life is small,

    maybe it’s brief,

    but it’s not meaningless.

    Even a drop

    changes the ocean

    in some quiet,

    unseen way.

    And maybe

    that’s enough.