Through the Fog

Tag: growth

  • Sweetest of the Sunflowers

    Sweetest of the sunflowers,

    how you’re the sun to me,

    the way your presence turns my face

    toward light

    even on days I’ve forgotten

    what warmth feels like.

    I don’t chase brightness anymore.

    I’ve learned how blinding it can be.

    But you,

    you don’t burn.

    You glow steady,

    soft enough to trust,

    strong enough to keep me standing.

    I find myself leaning your way

    without thinking,

    like instinct knows something

    my fear hasn’t caught up to yet.

    Even when I’m tired,

    even when I’m closed off,

    some part of me still turns toward you,

    hoping for a little more day.

    You see the parts of me

    that have been bent by weather,

    the places where storms lingered too long,

    and you don’t ask me to be anything else.

    You just stay.

    And somehow that’s enough

    to help me straighten again.

    I’ve spent so long growing in survival mode,

    roots tangled in doubt,

    petals guarded against disappointment.

    But around you,

    I don’t feel rushed to bloom.

    I feel allowed to open slowly,

    at my own pace,

    under a light that doesn’t demand

    more than I can give.

    If the world ever dims,

    if clouds gather the way they do,

    I know where I’ll turn.

    Not because I need saving,

    but because being near you

    reminds me that growth

    can still be gentle.

    Sweetest of the sunflowers,

    you don’t know how often

    you pull me back toward hope.

    How just being you

    makes me believe

    that even after long nights,

    there is still a reason

    to face the day.

  • Between What’s Said and Buried

    Photo credit-Thiébaud Faix

    Communication breaks me open

    in ways I don’t always survive.

    It drags the truth out of the corners

    I’ve kept in shadow,

    forces me to name the things

    I swore I’d never admit aloud.

    I’ve spent years learning

    how to make my silence look graceful—

    how to swallow storms,

    how to smile with a mouth full of grief,

    how to carry secrets

    without letting the weight show.

    But silence is a grave,

    and I’ve buried too many versions of myself

    trying to keep the peace.

    Trying to keep people.

    Trying to keep from falling apart

    in front of the wrong eyes.

    So when you ask me what’s wrong,

    I hesitate.

    Not because I don’t want to tell you,

    but because I don’t know

    how to hand you the truth

    without bleeding in the process.

    Communication isn’t easy for people like me—

    people who learned to fear their own voice,

    who were taught that honesty

    was the fastest way to lose someone.

    People who mistake vulnerability

    for danger.

    But still—

    I try.

    I open my mouth even when it trembles.

    I let the words come out

    messy, fractured, imperfect,

    hoping you’ll stay long enough

    to understand the quiet parts too.

    Because even though communication

    breaks me open,

    I’m tired of sealing myself shut.

    I’m tired of burying what I feel

    and calling it strength.

    Maybe this is what growth looks like—

    letting my truth exist

    outside of my own head,

    even if my voice cracks on the way out.

    Maybe this is how I rise

    from all the graves I dug for myself.