Through the Fog

Tag: endurance

  • Hard Seasons

    Some seasons don’t announce themselves

    with thunder.

    They slip in quietly—

    a slow dimming of color,

    a heaviness in the air

    that no one else seems to notice.

    You keep moving.

    You answer questions.

    You show up where you’re expected.

    But something inside you

    is walking through mud

    no one can see.

    Hard times don’t always look dramatic.

    Sometimes they look like

    laundry folded with tired hands,

    like unread messages,

    like staring at the ceiling

    and bargaining with morning.

    You tell yourself

    this is temporary.

    You tell yourself

    you’ve survived worse.

    You tell yourself

    strength is just endurance

    with better branding.

    But endurance gets lonely.

    There are nights

    when hope feels like a rumor,

    like something other people

    in brighter houses

    get to believe in.

    And still—

    you breathe.

    Not heroically.

    Not bravely.

    Just consistently.

    You take one small step

    because the floor is still there.

    You drink water.

    You answer one email.

    You let the day pass

    without demanding it be beautiful.

    And that counts.

    Hard seasons shape you

    in ways sunshine never could.

    They carve quiet resilience

    into your bones.

    They teach you

    that surviving

    is not the same as failing.

    One day,

    you will look back

    and realize

    you were growing

    in the dark.

    Not all growth

    reaches for light immediately.

    Some of it happens underground—

    roots stretching deeper

    so that when the wind returns,

    you don’t fall.

    Hard times are not the whole story.

    They are chapters—

    heavy ones, yes,

    but still turning.

    And if all you do today

    is stay—

    if all you manage

    is another breath—

    that is not weakness.

    That is a beginning.

  • Still Coal

    If pressure makes diamonds,

    how the hell am I still coal?

    I’ve been buried long enough.

    Pressed by expectations,

    by grief,

    by every version of myself

    that was supposed to turn out better.

    I’ve held the weight.

    Didn’t crack loudly.

    Didn’t fall apart in a way

    anyone noticed.

    I just stayed dark,

    compressed,

    waiting for something miraculous

    to happen.

    They say pressure builds strength.

    They say suffering refines you.

    They say one day

    you’ll shine.

    But nobody talks about the waiting—

    how long it takes,

    how quiet it is,

    how easy it is to believe

    you’re not becoming anything at all.

    Maybe I’m not broken.

    Maybe I’m just unfinished.

    Maybe not all pressure polishes—

    some of it just teaches you

    how to survive underground.

    So if I’m still coal,

    it’s not because I failed.

    It’s because transformation

    doesn’t happen on a schedule,

    and not every miracle

    glitters right away.

  • 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.