Through the Fog

Tag: emotional exhaustion

  • Living in Agony

    I am living in my agony,

    not visiting it,

    not passing through on the way to something better—

    I’ve unpacked here.

    Learned the hours.

    Memorized the sound of my own breathing

    when the night stretches too wide.

    Pain isn’t dramatic anymore.

    It doesn’t shout.

    It hums.

    Low and constant,

    like a refrigerator in the dark—

    easy to ignore until the power goes out

    and you realize how loud it always was.

    I wake up already tired,

    already negotiating with myself

    about how much truth I can afford today.

    Some days I give nothing.

    Some days I bleed quietly into routine

    and call it productivity.

    I carry my agony politely.

    I hold doors.

    I smile.

    I ask other people how they’re doing

    and mean it—

    because focusing on their lives

    keeps me from inventorying my own wreckage.

    But it’s there.

    In the pauses.

    In the way I flinch at kindness

    like it might ask something of me later.

    In how I brace myself

    even when nothing is coming.

    Living in my agony means

    learning the weight of unshed tears,

    how they press behind the eyes,

    how they settle in the chest

    like a language I never learned to speak aloud.

    It means knowing that healing isn’t linear—

    it’s circular.

    You come back to the same wounds

    wearing different names,

    hoping this time they recognize you

    as someone who survived.

    I don’t romanticize this.

    There is nothing beautiful about endurance

    when it costs you pieces you can’t replace.

    There is nothing noble

    about being strong so long

    you forget what rest feels like.

    And still—

    I keep going.

    Not because I’m brave.

    Not because I believe everything will work out.

    But because something stubborn in me

    refuses to let the pain have the last word.

    Living in my agony

    doesn’t mean I’ve given up.

    It means I’m honest about where I am.

    It means I’m still here,

    even when here hurts,

    even when the only victory

    is making it to the end of the day

    without disappearing.

    This is not a cry for saving.

    It’s a statement of fact.

    A line drawn in the dirt

    that says:

    this is where I stand,

    this is what I carry,

    and despite it all—

    I am still breathing.

  • What Have I Become

    What have I become, my sweetest friend,

    when even your silence sounds like judgment?

    When you look at me

    like I’m something you remember

    but don’t recognize anymore.

    I’m made of aftermath now

    of things that didn’t kill me

    but stayed anyway.

    I learned how to survive by shrinking,

    by numbing the sharp edges

    until nothing cut

    and nothing healed.

    I speak in half-truths.

    I smile like it’s a habit I can’t break.

    I carry my worst thoughts

    like contraband

    hidden, heavy, always with me.

    I wasn’t born this hollow.

    I was worn down.

    Sandpapered by time,

    by love that took more than it gave,

    by nights that taught me

    how easy it is to disappear

    without going anywhere.

    If you’re still calling me friend,

    don’t ask me to be better.

    Don’t ask me to go back.

    That person didn’t survive this.

    This is what’s left

    quieter, darker,

    harder to love,

    still breathing

    like that’s supposed to mean something.