Through the Fog

Author: Emery Lane Grey

  • Apologies to the Past

    I’m sorry things ain’t what they used to be—

    I say it like an apology,

    like time took a wrong turn

    and I’m somehow to blame.

    We were softer then.

    Or maybe just less honest

    about the cracks forming underneath.

    Back when laughter came easier

    and silence didn’t feel so loaded.

    Now everything carries history.

    Every word knows what came before it.

    Every pause remembers

    how things fell apart

    without making a sound.

    I miss the simplicity—

    the way hope didn’t need proof,

    the way love didn’t feel like work

    or risk or loss waiting its turn.

    But I also know

    we didn’t lose something for nothing.

    People grow.

    Truth shows up.

    Life asks more of us

    than nostalgia can answer.

    So I’m sorry, yes—

    for the distance,

    for the change,

    for the way “used to be”

    still aches when I say it.

    But I’m learning

    that different doesn’t always mean broken.

    Sometimes it just means

    we survived long enough

    to become real.

  • Leave

    Leave—

    before the walls remember my name,

    before the floorboards learn the sound

    of my shaking hands.

    Leave—

    while there’s still a part of me

    that believes I’m worth staying for,

    before the shadows start whispering

    everything I’ve tried to forget.

    I can’t promise I won’t miss you.

    I can’t promise I won’t ache

    in places you never even touched.

    But I won’t ask you to hold on

    to someone who keeps slipping

    through their own fingers.

    So go,

    while the door still opens,

    while the sky outside

    still carries a little color.

    Leave—

    not because I don’t care,

    but because I do.

    And because sometimes

    loving me

    means walking away

    before the darkness drags you down too.

  • I Will Wait

    I will wait for you —

    not with clocks or demands,

    but with a calm

    that knows some things

    take time to arrive.

    I’ll wait in the soft hours,

    in the spaces between messages,

    in the moments where wanting

    learns how to be patient

    without fading.

    There’s no rush in this.

    No pressure to become

    what we aren’t yet.

    Just a faith that says

    when you’re ready,

    I’ll still be here.

    I will wait for you

    the way the tide waits for the moon,

    certain without asking why,

    steady without needing proof.

    Not because I have nothing else,

    but because you are worth

    the quiet choice

    to stay.

  • One Year

    One year ago

    I put the glass down

    and it felt like

    putting down a weapon

    I had mistaken for comfort.

    I thought I was losing something.

    A ritual.

    A shield.

    A way to blur the sharp edges

    of my own mind.

    I didn’t know

    I was getting myself back.

    One year

    of raw evenings.

    Of sitting in rooms

    with nothing to soften them.

    Of learning that feelings

    don’t kill you

    even when they feel like they might.

    There were nights

    I counted minutes.

    Mornings I counted breaths.

    Days I counted reasons

    not to give in.

    No one saw

    how loud the quiet was.

    How heavy the air felt

    without the fog I used to live in.

    But I stayed.

    I stayed when cravings

    came dressed as nostalgia.

    When they whispered

    just one won’t matter.

    When they tried to rewrite history

    into something sweeter than it was.

    I remembered the truth instead.

    The shaking hands.

    The apologies.

    The pieces of myself

    I kept trading away

    for temporary silence.

    One year sober

    means I feel everything.

    The grief.

    The joy.

    The boredom.

    The beauty.

    It means my laughter

    is mine.

    My tears

    are honest.

    My mornings

    belong to me.

    I am not the wreckage

    I once was.

    I am not the hunger

    that used to run my life.

    I am a year of choosing

    clarity over chaos.

    Breath over blur.

    Staying over slipping.

    One year.

    And I am still here—

    not numbed,

    not hiding,

    not gone.

    Still here.

  • Unread

    The room is quiet

    in the way empty places breathe—

    soft, patient,

    like they already know

    no one is coming.

    Your name glows

    on the dark screen in my hands,

    a small white light

    that promises nothing.

    I tell myself

    silence doesn’t mean absence.

    That people have lives

    beyond the reach of my fears.

    But loneliness

    is a skilled storyteller.

    It takes a single unanswered message

    and builds a whole ending from it—

    a story where I was too much,

    or not enough,

    or simply forgettable.

    The minutes stretch thin.

    The night settles deeper.

    Across the room

    an empty chair waits

    like someone once meant to sit there.

    And I wonder

    how something so small—

    a pause,

    a delay,

    a quiet space between words—

    can echo so loudly

    in a heart

    that’s still learning

    how to believe

    someone might stay.

  • Perceived Abandonment

    It’s strange how loneliness can make you believe you’ve been abandoned, even when no one’s gone anywhere.

    It creeps in quietly — not as an event, but as a feeling.

    A hollow shift inside the chest, a soft whisper that says they don’t care anymore, even when they do.

    I know it’s not true.

    But in the moments when silence stretches too long,

    when messages go unread and days pile up in quiet stacks,

    it feels like proof.

    Proof that I’m too much, or not enough, or somehow both at once.

    It’s the oldest wound — that fear of being left behind.

    Not just by people, but by life itself.

    You start to think maybe everyone else got the map,

    and you were born to wander lost.

    I’ve learned that perceived abandonment isn’t about others leaving.

    It’s about the part of me that still believes love is temporary,

    that care has an expiration date,

    that any warmth will eventually fade.

    So I brace myself for endings that haven’t even begun.

    I pull away before anyone has a chance to.

    And then I call it loneliness, when really it’s just fear —

    the quiet kind that pretends it’s truth.

    But loneliness doesn’t mean I’ve been abandoned.

    It means I’m here, still longing, still feeling, still alive enough to miss something.

    And maybe that’s not weakness.

    Maybe that’s the part of me still hoping

    someone will stay long enough to prove my heart wrong.

  • The Shape of Silence

    It’s the echo of every truth you never dared to speak, 

    a weight that settles in the hollow of your chest

    like something carved from grief

    and sharpened by silence.

    It crawls along the inside of your skull,

    slow and deliberate,

    leaving claw marks in places

    you swore nothing could reach.

    It fills the rooms of your mind

    with a stillness so absolute

    it feels like a warning.

    Breathing becomes a memory,

    a thing you used to know how to do

    before this presence learned your shape

    and wrapped itself around you

    with the cold precision

    of something that doesn’t need to rush.

    This isn’t a blanket—

    it’s a shroud.

    It doesn’t warm;

    it constricts.

    It tightens until your pulse forgets its rhythm

    and your ribs forget their purpose.

    It settles deeper than fear could ever go,

    into the marrow,

    into the places no light has touched in years.

    You can’t see it—

    that’s the cruel part.

    It hides just beneath the threshold of vision,

    drowning you in a darkness

    that feels personal,

    intentional,

    intimate.

    And somehow,

    it knows you’ll let it stay.

  • Outlaw

    She was born with dust on her boots

    and trouble in her shadow—

    the kind of trouble

    that follows you slow,

    like it knows

    you’ll never shake it loose.

    They call her an outlaw,

    but she never meant to be one.

    Life just taught her early

    that some roads ain’t straight,

    and some sins

    don’t wash off easy.

    She’s ridden through towns

    that whispered her name

    like a warning,

    like a prayer,

    like a story told

    to keep children indoors.

    She’s stolen time,

    not gold—

    running from the woman she was

    toward the woman she might be,

    hoping the distance between them

    counts for something.

    Nights get long on the run.

    The moon watches everything,

    silent as a judge

    with a tired heart.

    But still, she rides—

    not for glory,

    not for fear,

    but because the horizon

    has a way of calling someone

    not yet ready

    to stop fighting her own ghost.

    Maybe outlaw’s just another word

    for someone who keeps moving

    when the world tries

    to pin her down.

    And if that’s a crime—

    then let the dust

    be her alibi.

  • Powerful Words

    Powerful words

    aren’t always loud.

    They don’t always arrive

    with thunder

    or fists on tables.

    Sometimes

    they slip out softly—

    barely above a whisper—

    and still manage

    to split a life in two.

    “I’m done.”

    “I forgive you.”

    “It wasn’t your fault.”

    “I need help.”

    “I choose myself.”

    Five syllables

    can reroute a future.

    Three words

    can untangle years

    of silence.

    There are sentences

    that bruise.

    Sentences

    that resurrect.

    Sentences

    that sit in your chest

    for decades

    like a nail you never removed.

    I have said words

    I wish I could swallow.

    I have swallowed words

    that should have been set free.

    That’s the danger of language—

    it carries weight

    whether we mean it to or not.

    But there is power, too,

    in choosing carefully.

    In speaking truth

    without cruelty.

    In drawing boundaries

    without apology.

    In naming pain

    without weaponizing it.

    Words built the cages

    I once lived in.

    Words also

    handed me the key.

    Sometimes power

    isn’t in shouting.

    It’s in saying the right thing

    at the right moment—

    and meaning it.

    It’s in knowing

    that what leaves your mouth

    doesn’t disappear.

    It lands.

    And once it lands,

    it grows.

  • Something Beautiful

    Something beautiful

    is happening

    where no one can see it.

    Not in the loud places

    that beg to be noticed,

    not in the moments

    people photograph

    to prove they were happy—

    but in the quiet work

    of a heart

    learning how to stay soft

    after being broken open.

    It’s in the way you breathe now,

    a little slower,

    like you’re no longer

    trying to outrun

    your own life.

    It’s in the small mercies

    you used to ignore—

    morning light

    resting on the floor,

    a song finding you

    at the exact right second,

    the strange relief

    of realizing

    you survived again.

    Nothing dramatic.

    Nothing the world would clap for.

    Just the slow return

    of gentleness

    to places that forgot

    it was allowed to live there.

    And maybe

    that’s what beautiful really is—

    not perfection,

    not happiness

    that never breaks,

    but the quiet decision

    to keep opening your hands

    to the light

    even after

    everything tried

    to teach you

    to close them.

    Something beautiful

    is happening.

    And this time,

    it’s you.