Through the Fog

Category: Mental Health

  • Between What’s Said and Buried

    Photo credit-Thiébaud Faix

    Communication breaks me open

    in ways I don’t always survive.

    It drags the truth out of the corners

    I’ve kept in shadow,

    forces me to name the things

    I swore I’d never admit aloud.

    I’ve spent years learning

    how to make my silence look graceful—

    how to swallow storms,

    how to smile with a mouth full of grief,

    how to carry secrets

    without letting the weight show.

    But silence is a grave,

    and I’ve buried too many versions of myself

    trying to keep the peace.

    Trying to keep people.

    Trying to keep from falling apart

    in front of the wrong eyes.

    So when you ask me what’s wrong,

    I hesitate.

    Not because I don’t want to tell you,

    but because I don’t know

    how to hand you the truth

    without bleeding in the process.

    Communication isn’t easy for people like me—

    people who learned to fear their own voice,

    who were taught that honesty

    was the fastest way to lose someone.

    People who mistake vulnerability

    for danger.

    But still—

    I try.

    I open my mouth even when it trembles.

    I let the words come out

    messy, fractured, imperfect,

    hoping you’ll stay long enough

    to understand the quiet parts too.

    Because even though communication

    breaks me open,

    I’m tired of sealing myself shut.

    I’m tired of burying what I feel

    and calling it strength.

    Maybe this is what growth looks like—

    letting my truth exist

    outside of my own head,

    even if my voice cracks on the way out.

    Maybe this is how I rise

    from all the graves I dug for myself.

  • Messed Up Kid

    I was just a messed-up kid

    trying to make sense of a life

    that never slowed down long enough

    for me to breathe.

    People saw the attitude,

    the anger,

    the way I shut down first

    so no one else could beat me to it.

    They didn’t see the trembling underneath—

    the part of me begging

    for someone to just stay.

    I learned early

    that love had sharp edges,

    and silence could bruise too.

    I carried secrets like stones in my pockets,

    heavy enough to drown me

    but somehow I kept walking.

    Every mistake I made

    felt like another reason to apologize

    for being alive.

    They called me trouble.

    They called me dramatic.

    They called me broken.

    But they never called me a kid

    who needed softness.

    Who needed someone to speak gently

    in a world that only knew how to shout.

    I grew up thinking chaos was normal,

    that pain was proof of living,

    that I had to earn every small piece of kindness

    by bleeding first.

    I didn’t know

    that survival doesn’t mean you’re unlovable—

    just that you had to grow thorns

    before you ever learned how to bloom.

    And yeah, maybe I was a messed-up kid.

    But I was also brave.

    I carried things I never asked for,

    held up a sky that wasn’t mine,

    and still managed to find a way

    to keep going.

    Now I look back at that version of me—

    the scared one,

    the angry one,

    the quiet one hiding behind wildfire eyes—

    and I want to tell them

    they weren’t ruined.

    They were shaped.

    Forged.

    Built out of battles

    they were never meant to fight alone.

    Maybe I was a messed-up kid,

    but I’m not that kid anymore.

    And if I am—

    if parts of them still live in me—

    I hold them gently now.

    I let them rest.

    I let them be more than their wounds.

    Because the truth is,

    I didn’t grow up wrong.

    I grew up surviving.

    And surviving

    is its own kind of strength.

  • When it Rains

    There’s got to be a break in the monotony—

    but Jesus, when it rains,

    how it pours.

    One bad day becomes three,

    and suddenly the whole week feels

    like a storm I never learned to stand in.

    I keep waiting for the clouds to part,

    for the world to give me

    just one soft moment,

    one breath that doesn’t feel borrowed.

    But life keeps dropping weight on me

    like it thinks I can’t be broken,

    like I haven’t cracked a hundred times already.

    Still, somewhere underneath the thunder,

    I hold on—

    not because I’m strong,

    but because the storm can’t last forever,

    even when it feels like it will.

    There’s got to be a break in the monotony,

    and maybe the pouring rain

    is just the sky making room

    for something better to grow.

  • Ghost

    Photo Credit: S L

    There’s a ghost in the mirror still haunting me.

    A version of myself I thought I buried

    beneath all the nights I swore I’d start over,

    all the mornings I promised I’d be different.

    She watches me from behind the glass,

    eyes hollow with the things I never said,

    jaw tight with all the things I swallowed

    just to make it through another day.

    She knows every secret.

    Every relapse, every regret,

    every time I tried to outrun the truth

    and tripped over the pieces I left behind.

    I wipe the mirror,

    but she doesn’t fade.

    Some ghosts don’t rattle chains—

    they whisper your name

    in the quiet moments when no one’s looking,

    reminding you of who you were

    and who you’re still afraid of becoming.

    And maybe she isn’t here to scare me.

    Maybe she’s waiting

    for me to finally look her in the eyes

    and say,

    I’m still here too.

  • I Feel Like Something’s Wrong When I’m Not Depressed

    I don’t know when it happened—

    when the heaviness became

    its own kind of home.

    When the silence tasted strange

    unless it carried a little ache.

    Some days I wake up light,

    breathing easier,

    and instead of feeling grateful,

    I flinch.

    Like joy is a trick

    and peace is just the calm

    before the next collapse.

    I look around for the darkness

    the way other people look for keys—

    worried I misplaced it,

    worried its absence means

    something worse is coming.

    It’s messed up, I know.

    But when you live in the storm long enough,

    sunlight feels like danger.

    Happiness feels like a costume

    you’re afraid to wear too long,

    in case someone rips it off

    and calls you out for pretending.

    I’m trying to relearn myself,

    trying to believe that ease

    doesn’t mean I’m slipping,

    that softness isn’t a symptom,

    that feeling okay

    doesn’t mean something’s wrong.

    But truth is—

    sometimes I only feel real

    when I’m hurting.

    And I’m still figuring out

    how to change that

    without losing who I am.

  • Maybe I Will, Maybe I Won’t

    And maybe one day

    I’ll finally grow up—

    stop running from shadows

    I created myself,

    stop pretending the chaos

    doesn’t belong to me.

    And maybe one day

    I’ll quit messing up,

    quit ruining the good things

    before they ever get a chance

    to feel real.

    But maybe I won’t.

    Maybe this is who I am—

    a storm tied together

    with shaky hands,

    a pattern I keep repeating

    even when I swear

    I’m done with it.

    Maybe I’ll just let you down,

    the way I’ve let down

    everyone who ever tried

    to get close enough

    to hold something

    I could never name.

    It’s not intention—

    it’s gravity.

    I fall the same way

    every time:

    hard,

    crooked,

    backwards into the dark

    I thought I’d outrun.

    And maybe one day

    I’ll rise out of it—

    but tonight,

    I’m just trying not to drown

    in the truth

    that some parts of me

    still cling to the wreckage

    I should’ve left behind

    long ago.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.