Through the Fog

Category: resilience

  • Still Coal

    They say pressure makes diamonds—

    like it’s a promise,

    like if you endure enough

    something beautiful

    is guaranteed.

    Like all this weight

    means something.

    But I’ve been under it—

    the expectations,

    the breaking points,

    the nights that felt like

    they’d cave in on me

    if I breathed too wrong.

    And I’m still here

    feeling like coal.

    Still rough.

    Still dark in places

    I can’t quite polish away.

    Still carrying the marks

    of everything that pressed down

    and didn’t turn me

    into something people admire.

    So what’s the difference?

    Is it time?

    Is it pressure?

    Or is it the way

    some things break

    before they ever get the chance

    to become anything else?

    Because no one talks about that—

    how pressure

    doesn’t always transform.

    Sometimes

    it just weighs.

    Sometimes

    it just leaves you

    exactly where you started—

    only more aware

    of how much you can carry

    without changing at all.

    But maybe—

    maybe being coal

    isn’t failure.

    Maybe it means

    I haven’t hardened

    into something unbreakable,

    haven’t lost the parts of me

    that still feel,

    that still bend

    instead of shatter.

    Maybe I’m not finished.

    Not polished.

    Not perfect.

    Not what they promised

    I’d become.

    But still here.

    Still holding

    the same fire

    that made them believe

    in diamonds

    in the first place.

  • I’ll Be Okay

    I keep telling myself

    I’ll be okay—

    like it’s something

    I can decide

    and not something

    I have to live through first.

    Like saying it enough times

    will turn it into truth

    before I’m ready to believe it.

    Some days

    it almost works.

    I move through the hours

    without falling apart,

    without letting the weight

    pull me under.

    I answer questions,

    smile when I’m supposed to,

    pretend this version of me

    is steady.

    But “almost”

    isn’t the same

    as okay.

    It’s quieter than that—

    a careful balance

    between holding it together

    and feeling it slip.

    And still—

    I don’t give up on it.

    On the idea

    that one day

    those words

    won’t feel borrowed.

    That I won’t have to convince myself

    of something

    I already am.

    Maybe okay

    isn’t a destination.

    Maybe it’s this—

    showing up

    even when I don’t feel right,

    staying

    even when leaving

    would be easier.

    Maybe it’s not about

    feeling whole.

    Maybe it’s about

    not disappearing

    in the process

    of trying to be.

  • Still Here

    Some days

    I move like a question

    no one bothered to answer—

    half-formed,

    half-finished,

    carrying pieces of myself

    that don’t quite fit anymore.

    I’ve tried to outrun it—

    the weight,

    the noise,

    the quiet kind of ache

    that doesn’t scream

    but never really leaves.

    But it follows.

    In the pauses.

    In the way I hesitate

    before saying I’m okay.

    In the way I’ve learned

    to sit with silence

    like it’s something

    I deserve.

    And still—

    I wake up.

    Still—

    I breathe

    even when it feels

    like effort.

    Still—

    some small part of me

    keeps reaching

    for something softer

    than what I’ve known.

    I don’t always believe

    in better.

    But I believe

    in this—

    that I’m still here,

    still standing

    in the middle of it all,

    and maybe

    that means

    something hasn’t given up on me yet.

  • Depths

    There are parts of me no one has ever seen,

    places too deep for language,

    too fragile for light.

    I’ve buried pieces of myself there—

    names, faces,

    entire versions of who I used to be.

    Some nights, the silence rises

    like a tide around my ribs.

    It pulls me under memories

    that still know how to breathe without me.

    I’ve learned that healing

    isn’t a clean thing.

    It’s jagged,

    like glass under skin—

    you stop bleeding,

    but you never forget where it cut.

    And yet,

    somehow, in the middle of all this ache,

    something gentle still grows.

    A small, stubborn hope

    that maybe the breaking

    was never meant to destroy me—

    only to show me

    how deep I could love,

    how deeply I could feel,

    and still come back whole.

  • Spite Outshines the Sun

    So you’ll always have your time to shine,

    even in the winter of your darkest hour.

    Not a blazing sun—

    just a flicker, a pulse,

    the last light in a body that refuses to die.

    Some nights the world will feel engineered

    to swallow you whole,

    to freeze every soft part of you solid.

    You’ll mistake numbness for peace,

    silence for safety,

    and you’ll wonder if the darkness

    is the only thing that ever truly understood you.

    But even then—

    in the coldest corner of your own mind,

    where even your breath trembles—

    something small will keep glowing,

    not out of hope,

    but out of spite.

    A refusal to disappear.

    A spark no night has earned.

    A reminder that the world can’t bury

    what it never built.

    Not all light is gentle.

    Some of it survives by burning.