Through the Fog

Tag: healing

  • Get What I Deserve

    I used to think

    getting what I deserve

    meant punishment.

    Like life was keeping score

    in some quiet ledger—

    every mistake inked in permanent,

    every failure waiting

    to be returned to me

    with interest.

    So I braced for it.

    For the fall.

    For the loss.

    For the moment

    everything I touched

    would finally reflect back

    what I believed about myself.

    Not enough.

    Too much.

    Hard to hold.

    Easy to leave.

    I called that honesty.

    I called that accountability.

    But it was just

    familiar cruelty

    wearing my voice.

    Because the truth is—

    I’ve already paid

    for things I didn’t deserve.

    Stayed too long

    where I was shrinking.

    Apologized

    for taking up space.

    Carried weight

    that was never mine.

    And still,

    some part of me

    thought balance meant

    more suffering.

    Like peace

    had to be earned

    through exhaustion.

    But maybe

    getting what I deserve

    isn’t about pain at all.

    Maybe it looks like

    rest without guilt.

    Love without proving.

    Being met

    without begging to be understood.

    Maybe it’s waking up

    and not immediately

    putting myself on trial.

    Maybe it’s this—

    learning that I am not a debt

    waiting to be collected.

    And for the first time,

    when I say

    “I want what I deserve,”

    I don’t mean consequences.

    I mean

    something gentle

    finally staying.

  • Hope

    Hope is the quiet thing

    that stays

    when the noise has burned itself out.

    It does not shout.

    It does not promise miracles.

    It simply sits beside you

    and says, breathe again.

    Hope is the thin crack of light

    under a door you thought was sealed,

    the way morning still arrives

    after the longest night

    without asking permission.

    It grows in unlikely places—

    between broken plans,

    inside tired hearts,

    in the pause before giving up.

    Hope is not the absence of pain.

    It is choosing to believe

    that pain is not the end of the story.

    It is a seed buried deep,

    trusting the dark

    long enough

    to reach for the sun.

    And one day—

    often when you are not looking—

    you realize

    you are still here.

    Still reaching.

  • One Year

    One year ago

    I put the glass down

    and it felt like

    putting down a weapon

    I had mistaken for comfort.

    I thought I was losing something.

    A ritual.

    A shield.

    A way to blur the sharp edges

    of my own mind.

    I didn’t know

    I was getting myself back.

    One year

    of raw evenings.

    Of sitting in rooms

    with nothing to soften them.

    Of learning that feelings

    don’t kill you

    even when they feel like they might.

    There were nights

    I counted minutes.

    Mornings I counted breaths.

    Days I counted reasons

    not to give in.

    No one saw

    how loud the quiet was.

    How heavy the air felt

    without the fog I used to live in.

    But I stayed.

    I stayed when cravings

    came dressed as nostalgia.

    When they whispered

    just one won’t matter.

    When they tried to rewrite history

    into something sweeter than it was.

    I remembered the truth instead.

    The shaking hands.

    The apologies.

    The pieces of myself

    I kept trading away

    for temporary silence.

    One year sober

    means I feel everything.

    The grief.

    The joy.

    The boredom.

    The beauty.

    It means my laughter

    is mine.

    My tears

    are honest.

    My mornings

    belong to me.

    I am not the wreckage

    I once was.

    I am not the hunger

    that used to run my life.

    I am a year of choosing

    clarity over chaos.

    Breath over blur.

    Staying over slipping.

    One year.

    And I am still here—

    not numbed,

    not hiding,

    not gone.

    Still here.

  • 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.

  • Missing You

    I didn’t think being away would feel like this —

    like living in a pause.

    The world keeps spinning,

    and I’m somewhere outside of it,

    trying to remember how to breathe again.

    They say this is where healing happens,

    but no one tells you that healing can feel

    a lot like breaking in private.

    Like tearing down the parts of yourself

    you built just to survive.

    I miss you in the quiet moments —

    in the slow mornings when the walls hum softly,

    in the long nights where time forgets how to move.

    It’s not just your voice I miss,

    it’s the way your presence steadied me,

    the way your silence felt like understanding.

    Some days, I want to tell you everything —

    how it hurts to be here,

    how it’s lonely even surrounded by people,

    how I’m learning to sit with the pieces of myself

    I used to keep buried.

    But I know I’m here for a reason.

    I know I have to face the dark before I can find the light again.

    Still, I carry you with me —

    in every small step, every shaky breath,

    every promise that I’ll come back whole.

    Missing you isn’t weakness.

    It’s proof that I’m still capable of love,

    even while learning how to love myself again.

  • Sometimes We’re Broken and We Don’t Know Why

    Sometimes we’re broken

    and we don’t know why—

    there’s no moment to point to,

    no sharp edge we tripped over,

    no memory that explains

    the heaviness we wake up with.

    Some wounds aren’t from events,

    but from seasons.

    From slow storms

    that soaked us through

    before we even realized

    we were standing in the rain.

    Sometimes the sadness

    isn’t loud or dramatic—

    it’s quiet,

    a small tear in the soul

    that widens over time

    until the light slips through

    and we mistake it for emptiness.

    We say we’re fine

    because nothing “bad” happened,

    but our hearts ache anyway,

    caught between the person we were

    and the one we’re trying to become.

    And maybe that’s the truth—

    maybe being broken

    doesn’t always have a reason.

    Maybe sometimes

    the heart just gets tired

    from carrying everything alone.

    But even then,

    even in that quiet unraveling,

    you’re not beyond repair.

    You’re just learning yourself

    in the hardest way—

    piece by fragile piece,

    pain by honest pain.

    And one day,

    the why won’t matter

    as much as the fact

    that you made it through

    without needing an answer.

  • Borrowed Happiness

    I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour,

    where the edges blurred

    and the ache softened just enough

    to feel like relief.

    For a moment, I didn’t have to carry

    the full weight of myself.

    Laughter came easier,

    memories felt kinder,

    and the world loosened its grip.

    In that fog, pain was distant—

    muted, negotiable,

    something I could outrun

    with another swallow,

    another borrowed sense of peace.

    I mistook numbness for healing

    and silence for rest.

    But heaven knows I’m miserable now.

    Clear-headed and heavy,

    left alone with everything

    I tried not to feel.

    The truth waits patiently

    for sobriety,

    for morning light,

    for the moment pretending runs out.

    There’s no romance in the aftermath—

    only the echo of what I avoided

    and the knowing that happiness

    built on escape

    never survives the night.

    I was happy for an hour, yes.

    But misery has a longer memory.

    And now I’m standing in it,

    fully awake,

    trying to learn how to live

    without needing to disappear

    to feel okay.

  • When the Nights Get Heavy

    Dear God, please—

    I’m trying to hold myself together

    with hands that won’t stop shaking.

    The nights get long,

    the thoughts get heavy,

    and the world feels too sharp

    for a heart this soft.

    Dear God, please—

    quiet the noise in my head

    before it swallows the parts of me

    I’m still trying to save.

    I’ve been running from shadows

    that look too much like my past,

    and I’m tired of losing sleep

    to memories that won’t stay buried.

    Dear God, please—

    remind me I’m not alone

    when I’m convinced I am.

    Remind me You see something in me

    I’ve never been brave enough to believe.

    Hold me when I fall apart,

    even if all I bring You

    is the wreckage of another long night.

    Dear God, please—

    don’t let go.

    Not now.

    Not when I’m this close

    to breaking or becoming—

    I don’t even know which anymore.

    Just stay.

    Just guide.

    Just breathe with me

    until I can breathe again.

    Dear God, please.

  • What I’d Leave Behind

    I would paint the walls

    with every beautiful thing I am

    and every terrible thing I’ve ever been —

    layered thick,

    no clean lines,

    no apology for the mess.

    Joy smeared beside regret,

    love dripping into shame,

    gold pressed hard

    against the bruised colors

    no one likes to look at too long.

    I wouldn’t fix the edges.

    I wouldn’t soften the truth.

    There would be laughter

    caught mid-breath,

    and grief so old

    it’s learned how to sit quietly.

    There would be nights

    I survived out of spite,

    and mornings

    I stayed for no good reason at all.

    It wouldn’t be pretty.

    It would be mine.

    A room that says:

    this person felt deeply,

    broke often,

    kept going anyway.

    A testament to contradictions —

    light bleeding into dark,

    dark refusing to erase the light.

    If anyone stood there long enough,

    they’d see it wasn’t destruction

    I was trying to leave behind —

    it was proof.

    Proof that I was here.

    That I contained multitudes.

    That even the terrible things

    never managed

    to erase the beautiful ones.

  • Regret is My Constant Companion

    Regret walks beside me

    like a shadow that never learned

    how to leave when the sun comes up.

    It knows my footsteps,

    matches my breathing,

    whispers the names of moments

    I wish I could touch again

    with gentler hands.

    I carry whole conversations

    that never happened,

    apologies folded small

    inside my chest,

    waiting for a door

    that doesn’t exist anymore.

    Sometimes regret is loud—

    a storm of what if

    crashing against the ribs

    until sleep feels impossible.

    Sometimes it is quiet,

    just a chair pulled out

    at the table of memory,

    sitting across from me

    without speaking,

    and somehow saying everything.

    I used to think regret

    was punishment—

    proof that I had ruined

    the only life I was given.

    But maybe regret is only love

    with nowhere left to go.

    Maybe it stays

    because something in me

    still cares enough

    to wish I had chosen

    more gently.

    And if that’s true,

    then regret is not my enemy.

    It is the part of my heart

    that refuses to become careless.

    The part that still believes

    even broken people

    can learn how to hold the world

    without hurting it.

    And maybe one day

    regret will loosen its grip,

    not because the past changed,

    but because I finally did—

    soft enough

    to forgive the person

    who didn’t know

    how to be me yet.