Through the Fog

Blog

  • 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.

  • I Will Wait

    I will wait for you —

    not with clocks or demands,

    but with a calm

    that knows some things

    take time to arrive.

    I’ll wait in the soft hours,

    in the spaces between messages,

    in the moments where wanting

    learns how to be patient

    without fading.

    There’s no rush in this.

    No pressure to become

    what we aren’t yet.

    Just a faith that says

    when you’re ready,

    I’ll still be here.

    I will wait for you

    the way the tide waits for the moon,

    certain without asking why,

    steady without needing proof.

    Not because I have nothing else,

    but because you are worth

    the quiet choice

    to stay.

  • One Year

    One year ago

    I put the glass down

    and it felt like

    putting down a weapon

    I had mistaken for comfort.

    I thought I was losing something.

    A ritual.

    A shield.

    A way to blur the sharp edges

    of my own mind.

    I didn’t know

    I was getting myself back.

    One year

    of raw evenings.

    Of sitting in rooms

    with nothing to soften them.

    Of learning that feelings

    don’t kill you

    even when they feel like they might.

    There were nights

    I counted minutes.

    Mornings I counted breaths.

    Days I counted reasons

    not to give in.

    No one saw

    how loud the quiet was.

    How heavy the air felt

    without the fog I used to live in.

    But I stayed.

    I stayed when cravings

    came dressed as nostalgia.

    When they whispered

    just one won’t matter.

    When they tried to rewrite history

    into something sweeter than it was.

    I remembered the truth instead.

    The shaking hands.

    The apologies.

    The pieces of myself

    I kept trading away

    for temporary silence.

    One year sober

    means I feel everything.

    The grief.

    The joy.

    The boredom.

    The beauty.

    It means my laughter

    is mine.

    My tears

    are honest.

    My mornings

    belong to me.

    I am not the wreckage

    I once was.

    I am not the hunger

    that used to run my life.

    I am a year of choosing

    clarity over chaos.

    Breath over blur.

    Staying over slipping.

    One year.

    And I am still here—

    not numbed,

    not hiding,

    not gone.

    Still here.

  • Unread

    The room is quiet

    in the way empty places breathe—

    soft, patient,

    like they already know

    no one is coming.

    Your name glows

    on the dark screen in my hands,

    a small white light

    that promises nothing.

    I tell myself

    silence doesn’t mean absence.

    That people have lives

    beyond the reach of my fears.

    But loneliness

    is a skilled storyteller.

    It takes a single unanswered message

    and builds a whole ending from it—

    a story where I was too much,

    or not enough,

    or simply forgettable.

    The minutes stretch thin.

    The night settles deeper.

    Across the room

    an empty chair waits

    like someone once meant to sit there.

    And I wonder

    how something so small—

    a pause,

    a delay,

    a quiet space between words—

    can echo so loudly

    in a heart

    that’s still learning

    how to believe

    someone might stay.