Through the Fog

Category: resilience

  • The Day I Stop Counting

    Maybe healing starts

    the day I stop counting.

    Stop counting mistakes.

    Stop counting losses.

    Stop counting the people

    who left.

    Stop keeping score

    against myself.

    Because I’ve spent years

    measuring my life

    by what went wrong.

    The doors that closed.

    The chances I wasted.

    The versions of me

    that didn’t survive

    the way I thought they would.

    And somehow

    the good things

    never seem to count the same.

    The mornings I got up anyway.

    The nights I made it through.

    The times I wanted to quit

    but didn’t.

    Those victories

    always felt too small

    to keep.

    But maybe

    I’ve been looking

    at the wrong ledger.

    Maybe survival

    deserves a tally too.

    Maybe every day

    I stayed

    when it would’ve been easier

    to disappear into myself

    should count for something.

    Maybe every wound

    I carried

    without letting it make me cruel

    should count.

    Maybe every time

    I chose tomorrow

    without knowing

    what it would bring

    should count.

    Because if I measure my life

    only by what I lost,

    I’ll never see

    everything I kept.

    And despite it all—

    I kept going.

    I kept hoping.

    I kept finding reasons

    to stay

    even when I couldn’t name them.

    Maybe that’s the story.

    Not what broke me.

    Not what left.

    But what remained.

    And the day I stop counting

    everything I’ve lost

    might be the day

    I finally see

    how much I’ve survived.

  • The Last Thing I Wanted

    The last thing I wanted

    was another lesson.

    Another reason

    to rebuild myself

    from whatever was left

    after the dust settled.

    I was tired.

    Tired of losing people.

    Tired of losing sleep.

    Tired of waking up

    to the same ache

    wearing a different name.

    I wanted certainty.

    Something I could hold

    without wondering

    when it would leave.

    Something that stayed.

    But life

    has never been generous

    with guarantees.

    It gives you moments.

    People.

    Chances.

    Then asks

    what you learned

    when they were gone.

    And maybe

    that’s why I’m still here—

    not because I mastered

    any of it,

    but because every time

    life knocked me down,

    something stubborn in me

    refused to stay there.

    Even when I wanted to.

    Even when the ground

    felt more familiar

    than standing.

    So here I am.

    Not healed.

    Not finished.

    Not transformed

    into some wiser version

    of myself.

    Just still trying.

    Still carrying hope

    with dirty hands.

    Still believing

    there’s something ahead

    worth walking toward.

    And maybe that’s enough.

    Maybe courage

    isn’t feeling strong.

    Maybe it’s taking

    the next step

    when you’re not sure

    you have one left.

  • The Weight I Carry

    Some days

    I carry the weight of everything—

    every mistake,

    every goodbye,

    every version of myself

    I wish I could forget.

    Not because I want to.

    Because it follows me.

    In quiet moments.

    In songs I didn’t expect.

    In the pause

    between one thought

    and the next.

    I tell myself

    to put it down.

    As if grief

    is something you can leave

    on a table

    and walk away from.

    But some things

    cling to your hands.

    Some memories

    learn your shape

    so well

    they fit inside you

    like they were always meant

    to live there.

    And maybe

    that’s what growing older is—

    not learning how to forget,

    but learning how to carry

    what stays.

    The regrets.

    The losses.

    The people

    who became stories

    instead of futures.

    Still—

    I keep moving.

    Not because the weight

    gets lighter.

    But because somewhere along the way

    I got stronger

    than the things

    trying to drag me down.

    And maybe that’s enough.

    Maybe survival

    isn’t the absence of burden—

    maybe it’s learning

    how to walk forward

    with it anyway.

  • Bottom of the Sea

    I feel like I’ve been sinking

    for so long

    the bottom of the sea

    started feeling familiar.

    No sunlight here.

    No noise.

    Just pressure—

    constant, crushing,

    quiet enough

    to make you forget

    what breathing freely

    used to feel like.

    At first

    I fought it.

    Kicked toward the surface,

    reached for light,

    told myself

    I wasn’t meant

    to stay this deep.

    But exhaustion

    changes things.

    Eventually

    you stop fighting

    what keeps pulling you under.

    You let the dark

    wrap around you

    like something almost comforting.

    And that’s the dangerous part—

    how pain

    can become home

    if you live in it long enough.

    How loneliness

    starts sounding like peace.

    How silence

    starts feeling safer

    than hope.

    But somewhere

    beneath all this weight,

    beneath the wreckage

    and the parts of me

    that settled here years ago—

    there’s still movement.

    Still a pulse.

    Still something inside me

    remembering

    there’s a surface

    above all this.

    And maybe

    I haven’t drowned yet.

    Maybe

    I’m just lost

    deep enough

    to forget

    I was built

    to rise.

  • 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.