Through the Fog

Blog

  • Be Careful With Yourself

    There is something

    self-destructive in me,

    a part that reaches for fire

    even when I know it burns.

    It whispers when I’m tired,

    pulls at me when I’m lonely,

    tries to convince me

    that chaos is comfort

    and ruin is familiar.

    So I have to be careful.

    Gentle.

    Honest with myself

    about the places I am fragile

    and the urges that pretend

    to be escape.

    I am learning

    that awareness is protection,

    that naming the darkness

    keeps it from sneaking up on me.

    I don’t shame myself

    for the battles inside me —

    I just hold my own hands tighter,

    choose softer ways to survive,

    and remind the hurt in me

    that I’m not abandoning it

    ever again.

    Because I can be dangerous

    to myself,

    yes.

    But I can also be

    the one who saves me

    if I stay aware,

    stay gentle,

    stay here.

  • No One Determines Our Worth

    Photo Credit-Aleksey Kuprikov

    No one determines our worth—

    not the ones who doubted us,

    not the ones who left,

    not the ones who tried to shrink us

    into something quieter

    so they could feel louder.

    We are not defined

    by the people who couldn’t see us.

    We are not measured

    by the moments that broke us.

    We are not small

    just because someone else

    was afraid of our size.

    Our worth was carved into us

    long before the world decided

    to name our scars.

    It lives in our survival,

    in our softness,

    in the way we rise again

    even when the ground trembles.

    No one determines our worth—

    we do.

    We rewrite the story,

    we choose the truth,

    we decide who we are

    and who we refuse

    to ever be again.

    And if anyone tries

    to tell you otherwise,

    let them talk.

    Let them underestimate.

    Let them watch you grow

    into everything they swore

    you’d never become.

    Because here’s the secret

    they never wanted us to know:

    our worth is ours.

    Untouched.

    Unbroken.

    Undeniable.

    And we don’t need permission

    to rise.

  • 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.

  • These Words Are All I Have

    Photo Credit-Bas Glaap

    These words are all I have—

    the only way I know

    to bleed without breaking,

    to speak without shattering

    the pieces I’m still holding together.

    I can’t hand you my heart

    without it trembling,

    can’t show you my scars

    without feeling them reopen,

    so I write instead—

    hoping you hear the truth

    hiding between the lines.

    These words are all I have

    when my voice won’t steady,

    when the ache in my chest

    is louder than anything I could say.

    So I offer them softly,

    quiet as a confession,

    fragile as a prayer—

    hoping you’ll read them

    and understand

    that everything I feel

    is here on the page,

    because it’s the only place

    I’m not afraid

    to let it live.

  • In the Early Hours of Morning

    Photo Credit-Daniil Onischenko

    In the early hours of morning,

    when the world is barely awake

    and the sky is holding its breath,

    I find a quiet I can’t touch

    at any other time of day.

    The air feels softer then—

    like it knows my name,

    like it recognizes the weight

    I carried through the night.

    Streetlights hum their sleepy glow,

    and shadows stretch long and gentle,

    not to scare me,

    but to remind me I’m not alone.

    My thoughts move slower,

    unrushed, unjudged,

    wandering the dim edges of dawn

    where everything feels honest.

    In the early hours of morning,

    I’m not trying to be anything—

    not brave, not healed,

    not whole.

    I’m just a heartbeat

    listening to the world exhale,

    waiting for the sun

    to rise over the parts of me

    I’m still learning to love.

  • What Waits in the Quiet

    Photo Credit: Martin Adams

    It’s the presence that waits for you in the silence,

    the thing that doesn’t need eyes

    to watch you.

    It slips in when the room goes quiet,

    when the air grows still,

    when you finally think you’re alone.

    It’s patient—almost gentle—

    as it curls around the edges of your thoughts

    like frost spreading across a windowpane.

    You don’t see it.

    You feel it.

    A slow awareness that something is there,

    too close,

    too familiar.

    It rearranges your memories

    just slightly—

    enough to make you question

    what happened

    and what you think happened.

    It blurs the line between the two

    until you can’t trust the ground you’re standing on.

    It whispers in a voice

    that sounds almost like yours,

    but not quite—

    like someone learned your tone

    by listening through the walls.

    It knows the places your mind goes

    when you’re tired.

    It knows the thoughts you’re afraid to admit to yourself.

    It knows the cracks in your armor,

    the ones you swear aren’t visible.

    And it sits there,

    in the dim corners of your mind,

    waiting for the moment

    you confuse its breath for your own.

    Because that’s how it gets you—

    not with fear,

    not with violence,

    but with familiarity.

    It doesn’t need to break down the door.

    It only needs you to open it

    thinking you’re letting yourself in.

  • Wave of Sorrow

    It hits out of nowhere —

    that wave of sorrow.

    One minute I’m fine,

    the next I’m drowning in feelings

    I didn’t ask for.

    I don’t even know what triggers it.

    A memory.

    A song.

    A thought I didn’t catch in time.

    Sometimes it’s nothing at all.

    All I know is that it comes fast,

    cold and heavy,

    like the ocean pulling me under

    before I can take a breath.

    And I hate that I can’t control it.

    I hate that something so old,

    or so small,

    or so invisible

    can still crash over me

    and leave me standing there soaked in sadness

    for reasons I can’t explain.

    But the wave always passes.

    It always does.

    Even if it leaves me tired,

    or quiet,

    or a little more worn down than before.

    And when it does,

    I remind myself

    that surviving the tide

    still counts as strength.

  • My Thoughts

    People ask me all the time where my thoughts come from,

    like there’s some peaceful corner of my mind

    where everything sits neatly in place.

    I usually just laugh a little,

    because if they really knew,

    they’d probably never ask again.

    My thoughts don’t come from pretty places.

    They show up from the things I tried to bury,

    the memories I hoped would stay quiet.

    Half the time it feels like I’m digging up old ghosts

    that refuse to stay dead.

    People think inspiration is soft and beautiful.

    Mine isn’t.

    Mine comes from nights I couldn’t hold myself together,

    from moments that broke me in ways I still don’t talk about,

    from the weight I carry even when I swear I’m fine.

    So when someone says,

    “Where does your writing come from?”

    I smile, because the real answer would make them uncomfortable.

    It comes from the parts of me I don’t show.

    The fears I wake up with.

    The wounds that still ache.

    The stories I survived but never really got over.

    And honestly, I don’t write because it’s poetic

    or because it makes me look deep.

    I write because if I don’t get this stuff out of my head,

    it just sits there and eats at me.

    So yeah, people ask.

    But the truth is simple:

    My thoughts come from the places I wish they didn’t.

    And most people really, truly don’t want to know.

  • Know That You Are Loved

    (Even If You Don’t Love Yourself)

    Know that you are loved

    even if you don’t love yourself,

    even if the mirror feels like a stranger

    and your own heartbeat sounds borrowed.

    Know that you are held

    in ways you can’t always see —

    in whispered prayers,

    in the quiet hope someone sends your way

    when you don’t even realize you need it.

    You are loved

    in the way dawn forgives the night,

    in the way a bruised sky still softens at sunrise,

    in the way life keeps giving you

    one more breath to try again.

    You don’t have to earn it.

    You don’t have to feel it.

    You don’t have to understand why.

    Just know this:

    on the days you’re breaking,

    on the days you’re numb,

    on the days you look at yourself

    and can’t find a single reason to stay—

    someone out there

    is grateful that you’re here,

    is rooting for your healing,

    is carrying the love

    you can’t yet carry for yourself.

    And until you can feel it —

    let that be enough.