Through the Fog

Tag: emotional survival

  • Heart of Stone

    They say I’ve got

    a heart of stone—

    like I woke up this way,

    cold from the beginning,

    untouched by anything

    that ever tried to reach me.

    But stone

    isn’t born hard.

    It becomes that way

    through pressure,

    through weather,

    through years

    of standing in storms

    with no shelter.

    People see the surface

    and stop there.

    They don’t see

    how many times

    I tried to love softly,

    how many times

    I opened my hands

    just to watch

    everything good

    slip through them.

    So I learned.

    Learned how to close off

    before something

    could get close enough

    to ruin me again.

    Learned how to act indifferent,

    how to keep my voice steady,

    how to pretend

    nothing touches me anymore.

    But pretending

    and feeling nothing

    aren’t the same thing.

    Because even stone

    remembers pressure.

    Even stone

    can crack.

    And underneath

    everything hardened in me—

    under the distance,

    the silence,

    the walls I built

    to survive—

    there’s still a heart there.

    Just one

    that got tired

    of bleeding

    every time

    it tried to be soft.

  • It Scares Me

    It scares me

    how fast my mind can go there—

    how something small

    can open a door

    I didn’t mean to touch.

    Like there’s a version of me

    that knows the way out too well,

    that whispers in quiet moments

    when everything feels too heavy

    to carry again.

    I don’t always believe it—

    but I hear it.

    And that’s enough

    to make my hands still,

    to make me sit with myself

    a little longer

    than I want to.

    Because there’s another part—

    quieter,

    harder to hear—

    the one that stays.

    The one that waits

    for the storm to pass

    even when it doesn’t feel like it will.

    The one that knows

    these thoughts

    aren’t the same

    as truth.

    So I stay.

    Not because it’s easy.

    Not because I have answers.

    But because something in me

    is still choosing

    to be here—

    even when it scares me

    how close the edge

    can feel.

  • Loaded

    Holding to the grip

    of a loaded gun—

    is it protection

    or prophecy?

    My fingers curl

    around the cold promise of control.

    Something solid.

    Something final.

    Something that says

    you won’t hurt me again.

    But control

    can be an illusion

    with teeth.

    Sometimes what feels like safety

    is just fear

    disguised as strength.

    Sometimes what feels like power

    is only pain

    looking for a louder voice.

    Will it save me

    or leave me in the mud?

    Will it guard my heart

    or bury it deeper?

    Because anything held that tightly

    long enough

    starts to shape the hand.

    And I don’t want to become

    the thing

    I’m gripping

    to survive.

    Maybe salvation

    isn’t in the weapon.

    Maybe it’s in loosening

    my fingers—

    choosing to walk away

    before the echo

    decides my future for me.