Through the Fog

Blog

  • The War Was With Myself

    All this time,

    I thought I was fighting the world—

    the people who left,

    the ghosts that stayed,

    the weight that never lifted.

    But the truth is uglier.

    The war was with myself.

    Every battle fought in silence,

    every wound I swore didn’t hurt,

    every night I begged the mirror

    to stop reflecting back a stranger.

    I blamed the world for breaking me,

    but I was the one holding the hammer.

    I kept swinging,

    trying to make sense of the pain,

    trying to carve something worth saving

    out of the wreckage of me.

    And maybe that’s what survival really is—

    not victory,

    not peace,

    just the quiet after the fight,

    when you finally lay your weapon down

    and whisper,

    I’m still here.

  • Slurring All Your Words

    You were slurring all your words,

    not making any sense,

    laughing at things that weren’t funny,

    stumbling through sentences

    like the ground kept shifting.

    I watched the light in your eyes

    flicker in and out,

    like you were here,

    but only halfway—

    the rest of you drowning

    in whatever you were trying to escape.

    It wasn’t cute,

    or wild,

    or free.

    It was the kind of broken

    you pretend is a good time

    until the room goes quiet

    and you finally hear

    how far you’ve fallen.

    And maybe you didn’t notice,

    but I did—

    every cracked edge,

    every swallowed feeling,

    every truth you were too gone to say.

    You weren’t making sense…

    but the pain beneath it?

    That part was loud.

  • A Fucking Liability

    There’s a certain kind of shame

    that comes with getting older

    and realizing

    you still don’t have it figured out.

    Like—

    wasn’t I supposed to be stable by now?

    Grounded?

    Proud of the person staring back at me

    in the mirror?

    Instead—

    some mornings I wake up

    and it feels like I’m just

    a grown child

    wearing adult skin.

    Still making the same mistakes.

    Still learning lessons

    I should’ve mastered

    years ago.

    I’m 35 years old—

    and still a fucking liability.

    Not just to other people—

    to myself.

    And it’s not loud anymore.

    That’s the thing.

    It used to be chaos.

    Reckless.

    Obvious.

    Now?

    It’s quiet.

    It’s forgetting to eat.

    It’s isolating.

    It’s replaying conversations

    like they’re crimes

    I need to confess to.

    It’s sitting in a room

    with my own thoughts

    and realizing

    I don’t know how to turn them off.

    I tell myself—

    “you should be better by now.”

    But “better” feels like a word

    that belongs

    to other people.

    People who figured it out.

    People who don’t wake up

    feeling like they’re already behind

    in a race

    they never signed up for.

    And I’m tired.

    God, I’m tired.

    Tired of surviving.

    Tired of explaining

    why I’m still not okay.

    Why things that look simple

    feel impossible.

    Tired of pretending

    I’m not drowning

    just because

    I learned how to stay quiet

    while it’s happening.

    Because everyone else

    looks like they’re swimming just fine.

    And me?

    I’m just…

    trying not to sink

    in front of them.

    But here’s the part

    I don’t say out loud—

    Somewhere,

    deep under all of this—

    I still want to believe

    I can be more than this.

    That maybe

    “liability”

    doesn’t mean

    worthless.

    Maybe it just means

    unfinished.

    Still in progress.

    Still carrying things

    I never asked to hold.

    Still trying—

    even when I don’t know

    what I’m trying for anymore.

    So yeah—

    I’m 35

    and still a fucking liability.

    But I’m also

    still here.

    And maybe—

    just maybe—

    that counts

    for something.

  • When I Dream

    When I dream,

    all I see is your face—

    not the version I tell the world about,

    but the one I still can’t look at

    without something in me breaking.

    My mind spills the truth at night,

    because sleep is the only place

    I don’t get to lie.

    The pain shows up unmasked,

    unfiltered,

    unapologetic—

    like it’s been waiting for the silence.

    But when I wake,

    I put the armor back on.

    I cover up how I feel

    with practiced smiles

    and sentences I don’t believe.

    People ask how I’m doing,

    and I give them the safe answer,

    the one that keeps the room comfortable.

    Nobody wants to hear

    that I still bleed in dreams.

    Nobody wants the version of me

    that doesn’t heal neatly.

    So I swallow it.

    The grief.

    The guilt.

    The nights that still replay like a warning.

    I only tell the truth in sleep—

    because the daylight demands performance,

    and I’ve gotten good at pretending

    I’m not still haunted.

  • Sleepless Nights

    Sleepless nights

    stretch out like highways—

    quiet, endless,

    full of thoughts I wish

    would leave me alone.

    I lie awake

    counting the things I can’t fix,

    listening to the clock

    drag its feet,

    feeling the weight of every memory

    that refuses to fade.

    And somewhere between midnight

    and whatever comes after,

    I start to wonder

    if sleep is avoiding me—

    or if I’m avoiding myself.

  • Monsters

    There were monsters under the bed

    when I was small —

    shadows that crept when the lights went out,

    teeth made of night,

    hands made of nothing but fear.

    Mama said they weren’t real,

    just tricks of the dark.

    But she never looked close enough

    to see the ones growing inside me.

    The monsters learned my name.

    They whispered it softly

    when I tried to sleep,

    sang lullabies of shame

    and promises of pain.

    As I grew older,

    they stopped hiding under the bed.

    They moved in —

    set up home behind my eyes,

    curled around my thoughts,

    and told me I was theirs.

    Now I make the bed every morning,

    neat corners, clean sheets,

    pretending the space beneath is empty.

    But some nights,

    I still hear breathing —

    not from the floor,

    but from within.

    And I realize

    the scariest thing about growing up

    is learning the monsters never leave.

    They just change address.

    From under the bed

    to inside your head.

  • Belonging, Measured in Time

    The hardest thing of all is to belong—

    not to a place,

    not to a person,

    but to the moment you’re standing in

    without shrinking yourself to fit it.

    Belonging asks for courage.

    It asks you to stay visible

    when hiding would be easier,

    to plant your feet

    when every instinct tells you

    to keep moving.

    It’s learning how to be here

    without apology.

    The oddest thing of all is time.

    How it slips through your fingers

    even when you’re paying attention.

    How it rushes past the moments

    you’d beg to keep

    and lingers in the ones

    you’re trying to survive.

    Time teaches you too late

    what mattered most.

    It turns now into then

    without asking permission,

    and suddenly you’re holding memories

    instead of people,

    lessons instead of chances.

    Maybe belonging and time

    are tied together—

    maybe we struggle to belong

    because we’re always afraid

    of when.

    When it will change.

    When it will end.

    When it will hurt.

    So we hover at the edges,

    half-in, half-out,

    thinking distance will protect us.

    But all it does

    is make the passing louder.

    The hardest thing of all

    is choosing to belong anyway.

    The oddest thing of all

    is realizing time never waited

    for us to decide.

  • 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.