Through the Fog

Tag: healing journey

  • Maybe It’s My Fault

    Maybe it’s my fault

    for not giving you

    enough attention.

    Maybe love is measured

    in minutes I missed,

    in texts I didn’t send fast enough,

    in the quiet times

    I needed for myself

    that you heard as absence.

    Maybe if I had been

    softer,

    quieter,

    smaller—

    you wouldn’t have felt

    so far away.

    I’ve turned this question

    over and over

    in my hands,

    like something sharp

    I keep choosing

    to hold.

    Because blame

    is easier to carry

    than truth.

    Truth asks harder things—

    like whether love

    should require

    my constant proving.

    Like whether care

    should feel

    like a test

    I’m always failing.

    Maybe I did miss moments.

    Maybe I wasn’t perfect.

    Maybe I couldn’t give

    everything

    you wanted.

    But love

    isn’t supposed

    to be starvation

    for one person

    and sacrifice

    for the other.

    Love should survive

    ordinary silence.

    It should breathe

    without permission.

    It should not crumble

    the moment

    I turn inward

    to find myself.

    So maybe

    it isn’t my fault

    after all.

    Maybe the truth

    is quieter

    and harder

    to accept—

    that I was trying

    to love you

    with a whole heart

    while slowly

    forgetting

    to love myself.

    And maybe healing

    begins

    the moment

    I stop asking

    what I did wrong

    and start asking

    why I believed

    I had to disappear

    to be loved.

  • Slow Erosion of Self

    It didn’t happen all at once.

    No single moment

    I could point to and say,

    there—

    that’s where I lost myself.

    It was quieter than that.

    More like water

    touching stone

    day after patient day,

    until the edges

    forgot

    how to be sharp.

    I started letting small things go—

    opinions

    that felt too heavy to defend,

    dreams

    that needed more space

    than the room allowed,

    pieces of laughter

    that sounded wrong

    in the wrong silence.

    Nothing dramatic.

    Nothing anyone would notice.

    Just the slow trade

    of truth for peace,

    of voice for calm,

    of self

    for staying.

    I became easy.

    Agreeable.

    Low-maintenance

    in all the ways

    that make a person

    hard to find again.

    And the strangest part

    was how normal it felt.

    How erosion

    can look like love

    when you’re standing

    inside it.

    Until one day

    I reached for myself

    out of habit—

    and touched

    only absence.

    No anger.

    No clear grief.

    Just a quiet question

    echoing through

    a hollow place:

    When did I disappear?

    I wish I could say

    this is the part

    where everything returns

    bright and certain.

    But truth is slower.

    Healing begins

    not with becoming whole,

    but with noticing

    what’s missing.

    With naming

    the emptiness

    instead of decorating it.

    With the fragile decision

    to believe

    a self can be rebuilt

    from fragments

    no one else

    thought were worth keeping.

    So now

    I gather pieces—

    a boundary here,

    a memory there,

    one honest word

    spoken softly

    into open air.

    It isn’t dramatic.

    It isn’t fast.

    But erosion

    took time.

    And maybe

    returning

    will too.

  • Not Forever

    I don’t want

    forever

    to come in an orange bottle.

    Don’t want my mornings

    measured in milligrams,

    my stability

    scheduled between refills,

    my future

    printed in tiny pharmacy text

    I can barely read.

    I know what they say—

    that this is help,

    that this is balance,

    that this is how I stay

    safe

    and here.

    And part of me

    is grateful.

    Because I remember

    what life felt like

    before the quiet

    was possible.

    But another part of me

    keeps whispering:

    Is this the only way?

    Will I ever stand

    without the scaffolding?

    Will healing ever mean

    freedom instead of maintenance?

    I don’t want to fight

    the people trying to help me.

    I don’t want to romanticize

    the chaos I survived.

    I just want to believe

    there is a version of living

    where my body

    knows how to be steady

    on its own.

    Where peace

    isn’t borrowed.

    Where calm

    isn’t counted.

    Where staying alive

    doesn’t feel like

    a prescription.

    Maybe forever

    isn’t the point.

    Maybe the point

    is staying

    long enough

    to grow into someone

    who has choices

    I can’t see yet.

    So for now

    I hold two truths

    at the same time—

    I don’t want this

    to be forever.

    And I still want

    to be here

    long enough

    to find out

    what isn’t.