Through the Fog

Tag: anxiety

  • Hey, Depression, My Old Friend

    You always try to get the best of me—

    to take the last laugh,

    to rewrite my thoughts

    until they sound like yours.

    You whisper that I’m weak,

    that I’m late to my own life,

    that I should know by now

    you never really leave.

    Battling you isn’t easy.

    You know that.

    You know every fault line,

    every night I doubted myself,

    every fear I never said out loud.

    You wait until I’m tired

    and call it truth.

    You wait until I’m quiet

    and call it surrender.

    You think persistence makes you powerful.

    You think showing up uninvited

    means you own the place.

    You mistake familiarity for victory.

    But listen to me—

    I am still standing.

    Even when my legs shake.

    Even when I’m angry, exhausted,

    done pretending this is fair.

    I push back in ways you don’t see—

    by getting out of bed,

    by choosing to stay,

    by refusing to disappear

    just because you asked me to.

    You knock me down,

    and I get back up pissed off,

    breathing hard,

    learning my strength the long way.

    You don’t get the last laugh.

    You don’t get to finish my sentences.

    You don’t get to decide

    how this story ends.

    I will overcome you—

    not cleanly,

    not quietly,

    not without scars.

    But I will.

  • Running in Place

    I can’t help feeling like everything is at stake,

    like one wrong move will collapse

    every fragile thing I’ve been balancing.

    So I lock myself inside my head—

    bolt the doors,

    pace the floors,

    run in place until my lungs burn

    and call it preparation.

    I don’t freeze because I don’t care.

    I freeze because I care too much.

    Because every decision feels loaded,

    every choice feels permanent,

    every step forward feels like a gamble

    I can’t afford to lose.

    My mind turns into a track meet—

    thoughts sprinting,

    worst-case scenarios stretching,

    my heart pounding like it’s doing something heroic

    while my life stays exactly where it is.

    I analyze.

    I overthink.

    I tear every option apart

    until nothing feels safe enough to touch.

    I tell myself I’m being careful,

    that caution is wisdom,

    that staying still is strategy.

    But really—

    I’m terrified.

    Terrified of messing it up.

    Terrified of proving every fear right.

    Terrified that trying and failing

    will hurt worse than never trying at all.

    So I run in place.

    Sweat, strain, panic—

    no distance covered.

    Just exhaustion layered on top of regret,

    momentum without movement,

    noise without progress.

    I scream inside my head

    while the world keeps going,

    unaware that I’m fighting a war

    no one can see

    and losing ground by standing still.

    I’m angry at the pressure.

    Angry at myself.

    Angry that wanting something badly

    can paralyze you just as easily

    as not wanting anything at all.

    And maybe the cruelest part

    is knowing this isn’t living—

    it’s containment.

    It’s fear disguised as discipline.

    It’s survival mode

    with nowhere to go.

    I don’t need another plan.

    I don’t need another rehearsal.

    I need the courage to stop running in place

    and accept that movement—

    real movement—

    will always feel dangerous

    to someone who’s been hurt before.

    But I’m so damn tired

    of sprinting nowhere,

    of locking myself away

    from the very life

    I’m trying so hard

    not to lose. 

  • Disassociate

    I leave my body without moving.

    Eyes open, but I am elsewhere.

    The room blurs, voices stretch thin,

    and I hover just above myself

    like smoke that forgot its fire.

    Disassociation feels like safety,

    but it is also loss.

    A way of surviving the unbearable

    by not being there at all.

    Time folds in strange ways.

    Minutes dissolve,

    hours vanish,

    days pass like a dream

    I can’t quite remember

    but can’t wake from either.

    I watch my hands move,

    hear my mouth speak,

    but none of it belongs to me.

    I am vaguely familiar to myself,

    a stranger inhabiting my skin.

    And yet,

    this distance once saved me.

    It kept me alive when being present

    was too dangerous, too sharp, too much.

    But now, healing asks me to stay.

    To return,

    to feel,

    to sit inside my own body

    without slipping through its seams.

    Disassociation taught me survival.

    Presence will have to teach me living.

  • Can’t Save Myself From 5AM

    Can’t save myself from 5am—

    that thin, trembling hour

    when the night is almost gone

    but refuses to let go,

    and I’m caught between yesterday’s ghosts

    and tomorrow’s promises

    I don’t know how to keep.

    There’s something cruel

    about the quiet at that hour,

    how it magnifies every bruise

    I thought I’d healed,

    how it pulls old memories

    back into my hands

    like I’m meant to cradle them

    instead of bury them.

    I lie there, staring at the ceiling,

    watching the darkness pulse

    in slow, aching waves,

    feeling the weight of every thought

    I pretended didn’t hurt.

    It’s the kind of loneliness

    that doesn’t shout—

    it whispers,

    it lingers,

    it crawls under my skin

    and makes a home there.

    5am is where the truth comes out—

    the truth I hide in daylight,

    the truth I swallow before speaking.

    It’s where the what-ifs return,

    where the could’ve-beens settle

    in the corners of my chest,

    where the world feels too wide

    for someone who feels

    so unbearably small.

    I try to breathe through it,

    try to remind myself

    that morning always comes,

    that light always finds a way in—

    but some nights,

    the dark wraps around me

    like it knows my name,

    like it’s claiming something

    I’m too tired to fight for.

    Everyone else is dreaming,

    and I’m wide awake,

    trying to stitch myself together

    before the sun finds me

    broken again.

  • Flint

    Photo Credit: Pete F

    Flint strikes out

    and pierce the dark—

    a single spark

    against a sky

    that’s forgotten how to shine.

    For a moment,

    light is a knife

    cutting through the quiet,

    a reminder

    that even the smallest fire

    can challenge the night.

    The dark leans in,

    hungry,

    certain it will swallow everything—

    but flint is stubborn,

    and sparks are born

    with rebellion in their bones.

    One strike,

    one flash,

    one heartbeat of brightness—

    enough to tell the shadows

    they don’t own this place,

    not tonight.

    Sometimes

    all it takes

    to change the whole sky

    is a spark brave enough

    to burn.

  • Imposter Syndrome

    I walk into rooms

    and wonder how long it’ll take

    before someone realizes

    I don’t belong here.

    My smile feels staged,

    my confidence borrowed,

    my voice a shaky echo

    of someone I wish I were.

    They say I’m strong,

    capable,

    brave—

    but all I hear is the doubt

    scratching at the back of my mind,

    whispering that I’m faking it,

    fooling them,

    lucky more than worthy.

    I carry praise like it’s fragile,

    like it might shatter

    the moment I look at it too closely.

    Every compliment feels like a mistake

    with my name on it.

    And yet—

    I keep showing up,

    heart pounding,

    hands trembling,

    hoping no one sees

    the cracks beneath my skin.

    Maybe I’m not an imposter at all…

    maybe I’m just someone

    who’s been fighting so long

    I forgot what it feels like

    to trust myself.

    Maybe the real fraud

    is the voice that tells me

    I’m not enough.

  • Choking on Words

    I’m choking on words

    I should have never thought of—

    the kind that burn going down

    and linger in the chest

    long after the moment’s gone.

    I’ve swallowed too many truths

    just to keep the peace,

    bit my tongue until it bled

    trying not to say your name.

    Some thoughts were never meant to be spoken,

    but they still echo—

    hollow and loud,

    like ghosts in an empty room.

    If you could see inside my mind,

    you’d find all the things

    I wish I’d never felt—

    and all the things

    I still do.

    So I breathe around the ache,

    let silence become my apology.

    Some words destroy when spoken,

    others destroy when kept.

    Either way,

    I’m still choking.

  • High Alert

    My body doesn’t trust the quiet.

    Even silence hums like danger.

    Every creak, every breath,

    feels like the start of something breaking.

    My heart sprints with no finish line,

    my hands forget how to rest.

    It’s not that I’m afraid of dying—

    I’m afraid of feeling this forever.

    The world moves in slow motion,

    but my thoughts race ahead,

    building fires where there’s only smoke,

    seeing ghosts in harmless shadows.

    I tell myself I’m safe,

    but my pulse calls me a liar.

    There’s no off switch,

    only exhaustion wearing my name.

    Still, I breathe—

    even if it’s shallow, even if it shakes.

    I remind myself:

    this is just my body trying to protect me,

    even when there’s nothing left to run from.