Through the Fog

Blog

  • Hope

    Hope is the quiet thing

    that stays

    when the noise has burned itself out.

    It does not shout.

    It does not promise miracles.

    It simply sits beside you

    and says, breathe again.

    Hope is the thin crack of light

    under a door you thought was sealed,

    the way morning still arrives

    after the longest night

    without asking permission.

    It grows in unlikely places—

    between broken plans,

    inside tired hearts,

    in the pause before giving up.

    Hope is not the absence of pain.

    It is choosing to believe

    that pain is not the end of the story.

    It is a seed buried deep,

    trusting the dark

    long enough

    to reach for the sun.

    And one day—

    often when you are not looking—

    you realize

    you are still here.

    Still reaching.

  • Gold

    Everything that shines

    ain’t always gonna be gold.

    Some things glow because they’re polished lies,

    because they learned how to catch the light

    just right—

    enough to blind you

    before you get close.

    I’ve chased the sparkle.

    Mistook attention for love,

    noise for meaning,

    promise for proof.

    Turns out some things shine

    only to hide the rust underneath.

    Not every bright future is real.

    Not every smile is safe.

    Some light burns fast

    and leaves you colder

    than the dark ever did.

    I’ve learned the hard way—

    gold doesn’t beg to be believed.

    It doesn’t flicker.

    It doesn’t need an audience.

    It holds its weight quietly

    and survives the fire.

    So now I look twice.

    I touch before I trust.

    I listen to what stays

    after the shine wears off.

    Because everything that shines

    ain’t always gonna be gold—

    and I’m done trading pieces of myself

    for things that only look like treasure.

  • God, Why Do You Love Me?

    God, why do You love me

    when I keep forgetting

    how to love myself?

    When I bargain with faith

    and doubt You on the hard days,

    when my prayers sound more like exhaustion

    than praise.

    Why do You stay

    when I run,

    when I close my fists around pain

    and call it protection?

    You’ve seen the mess.

    The anger.

    The nights I questioned

    whether breathing was enough.

    Still—

    You never looked away.

    You loved me before I learned

    how to be gentle.

    Before I knew how to stay.

    Before I believed I was worth

    the patience You give so freely.

    Maybe You love me

    because You see what I can’t—

    the becoming.

    The quiet strength.

    The heart that keeps choosing

    to wake up.

    God, I don’t understand

    a love that doesn’t flinch,

    doesn’t keep score,

    doesn’t leave when I’m heavy.

    But if this is grace—

    then let me rest in it.

    Let me believe

    that even broken things

    are held.

  • The Mess I Made

    Well, the path I’m takin’

    is narrow and worn,

    lined with the ghosts

    of choices I swore

    wouldn’t follow me home.

    And the mess it’s makin’—

    I see it now.

    In the people I loved

    from too far away,

    in the promises bent

    until they finally snapped.

    My heart’s been breakin’ for years,

    quietly at first,

    like a house settling into itself,

    then all at once—

    walls giving way,

    everything exposed to the weather.

    I kept walkin’ anyway,

    tellin’ myself damage meant movement,

    that pain was proof

    I was still alive.

    I learned how to survive storms

    by pretending I was one.

    But every mile adds weight,

    and every night asks

    what I’m really runnin’ from.

    I’m tired of mistaking destruction

    for direction,

    tired of calling this loneliness

    freedom.

    So if there’s mercy left

    on this road I chose,

    I hope it meets me

    before the break becomes permanent.

    Because my heart—

    though cracked and tired—

    is still beating,

    still hoping

    there’s another way forward

    that doesn’t cost me myself.

  • Memory

    Memory is a quiet thief,

    slipping through the halls of my mind

    collecting pieces of who I was

    and leaving them in places

    I can’t always reach.

    Some nights they return—

    soft as dust,

    sharp as glass—

    faces I loved,

    moments I meant to keep,

    the echoes of laughter

    that no longer belongs to now.

    I touch them carefully,

    afraid they’ll fade again

    if I breathe too deep.

    But memories never stay

    the way you saved them.

    They shift,

    they dim,

    they soften at the edges

    until they’re more feeling than fact,

    more ache than image.

    Still—

    I hold them close,

    these fragments that made me,

    these ghosts of gentler days.

    Because even when they hurt,

    they remind me

    that I lived.

    And that I loved

    hard enough

    to remember.

  • A Little Too Much

    I’ve been told

    I take my anger out on everyone else,

    like I’m swinging at shadows

    because I’m too afraid

    to hit the truth.

    They say I’ve been drinking too much,

    that my nights blur together

    because it’s easier

    than remembering them clearly.

    That the glass in my hand

    has become the closest thing

    I have to quiet.

    And the worst part is—

    they’re not wrong.

    I see the hurt in their eyes

    when my voice gets sharp,

    when my patience snaps,

    when I become someone

    I promised I’d never be.

    I know they’re reaching for me,

    but half the time

    I’m too far inside myself

    to reach back.

    Some days I don’t even know

    who I’m trying to protect—

    them, or the version of me

    that’s already breaking.

    I don’t drink to forget.

    I drink because remembering

    hurts in ways I can’t explain.

    Because silence echoes,

    and loneliness grows teeth,

    and some nights my chest

    feels too small

    for everything I’ve swallowed.

    I wish I could be better,

    softer,

    easier to love.

    But most days

    I’m just trying to keep myself

    from falling apart in the middle

    of someone else’s arms.

    And I know—

    I know—

    I’m losing pieces of myself

    trying to outrun pain

    that follows me everywhere.

    I just hope one day

    I learn how to stop breaking

    the people who stay.

  • Is Happiness an Illusion

    Is happiness an illusion—

    a trick of light

    on the surface of water,

    beautiful

    until you reach for it?

    I’ve watched it move

    from hand to hand,

    seen people swear

    they finally found it

    only to lose it again

    in the quiet hours.

    Maybe happiness

    was never meant to stay.

    Maybe it’s not a house

    we live inside forever,

    but a window

    that opens sometimes

    when the air is right.

    We expect permanence.

    We want something solid—

    a promise

    that once joy arrives

    it will unpack its bags

    and call our hearts home.

    But life

    is less certain than that.

    Joy flickers.

    Peace comes and goes.

    Even love

    changes shape

    as the years move through it.

    So maybe happiness

    isn’t an illusion.

    Maybe it’s a visitor—

    brief, real,

    impossible to cage.

    Something that passes through

    just long enough

    to remind us

    why we keep living

    in the first place.

  • Whatever Makes You Happy

    Whatever makes you happy—

    even if it isn’t me.

    Even if my name slowly fades

    from the places you once said it softly,

    like it mattered.

    I’ll stand back and watch you choose a life

    that doesn’t include my hands,

    my voice,

    my late-night honesty.

    I’ll pretend it doesn’t bruise

    to see you light up

    in a room I no longer enter.

    I wanted to be the place you rested,

    not the lesson you learned from.

    I wanted to be the reason you stayed,

    not the reason you grew brave enough to leave.

    But wanting has never been the same

    as being enough.

    So I’ll love you in the quiet ways—

    the ways that don’t ask for proof

    or promises.

    I’ll love you like distance loves memory:

    without interruption,

    without reward.

    If happiness finds you somewhere else,

    I won’t chase it down

    and beg it to look like me.

    I’ll swallow the ache,

    fold it neatly into my ribs,

    and call it grace.

    Just know—

    letting you go isn’t easy,

    and it isn’t clean.

    It’s choosing your peace

    over my longing,

    over the version of us

    I carried longer than I should have.

    Whatever makes you happy—

    I hope it holds you gently.

    I hope it sees you the way I did.

    And if you ever wonder

    why I disappeared so quietly,

    it’s because loving you meant knowing

    when to step out of the way.

  • 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.