I want to change everything—
not out of hate for who I was,
but out of love for who
I’m finally brave enough
to become.
I’m tired of surviving days
that were meant to be lived.
Tired of shrinking myself
to fit places that never felt like home.
So I’ll start small—
a thought, a boundary, a choice.
And one by one,
the life I’ve been carrying
will learn how to let me go.
I don’t need to burn it all down.
I just need to stop building
on what was breaking me.
I used to look for myself
in other people’s hands,
measure my worth
by how tightly they held on.
But I am learning—
slowly, unevenly—
how to stay
when the room gets quiet,
how to sit with my own heart
without asking it to be smaller.
I speak to myself now
the way I once begged others to.
Gently.
With patience.
With the understanding
that healing isn’t linear
and neither am I.
I forgive the versions of me
that didn’t know better,
that chose survival over softness,
that loved fiercely
without knowing how to be safe.
I am not perfect,
but I am present.
And today,
that is enough.
I am learning to be someone
I don’t have to run from—
someone I can come home to
and rest.
I didn’t move,
but the world wouldn’t stop turning.
Time kept its pace
while I stood still inside myself,
watching everything pass
like I wasn’t part of it anymore.
The sky seemed blue
or maybe that was just my emotion
projecting something softer
onto a day that didn’t earn it.
Funny how feelings can repaint reality
and call it truth.
I tried so hard to be cool about it,
to play it off like nothing touched me,
nursing a half-empty bottle
or is it half full?
I could never decide
if I was losing something
or still clinging to it.
I drank for the pause,
for the quiet between thoughts,
for the moment where I didn’t have to name
what was breaking underneath my calm.
The world kept spinning.
The sky kept pretending.
And I sat there measuring my life
in sips and seconds,
wondering when stillness
started feeling heavier
than motion ever did.
Every time I try to outrun myself,
my feet lock to the floor.
The harder I push forward,
the heavier my body feels,
like something inside me
is begging to be faced
instead of escaped.
I picture the other side
peace, clarity, a version of me
that doesn’t flinch at her own thoughts.
But the distance feels endless,
like I was dropped in the middle of nowhere
with no map
and a heart already tired.
I tell myself to move.
Just one step.
Just breathe.
But my mind is louder than my legs,
and every fear I’ve ever buried
comes sprinting past me,
reminding me I can’t outrun
what knows my name.
I’ve tried speed.
I’ve tried numbness.
I’ve tried pretending I’m fine
because it looks easier
than explaining the war inside my chest.
Still, I stay stuck
watching life rush by
like I missed my cue to jump in.
Some days it feels like
I’ll never make it to the other side,
like forward is a language
I never learned how to speak.
Like everyone else is crossing bridges
I can’t even see.
But maybe this stillness
isn’t failure.
Maybe it’s my body refusing
to abandon itself again.
Maybe the other side
isn’t somewhere I run to
maybe it’s something I build
right here,
piece by fragile piece.
I don’t know how to get there yet.
I only know I’m still here,
still breathing,
still wanting more than survival.
And maybe that means
I haven’t stopped moving at all—
I’ve just been learning
how to turn around
and finally walk with myself
instead of away.
You should have left me at the door,
warned me I was trouble dressed as hope.
But you let me in—
soft smile, open hands,
no armor in sight.
Now your heart is on the floor,
shattered where my shadows fell.
I never meant to ruin the quiet,
I just never learned how to love
without bleeding through everything.
If I could gather the pieces,
I would.
But some of us arrive like storms—
not to destroy,
just never taught how to stay gentle.
I was high then—
I couldn’t face things
the way they stood in front of me,
bare and demanding.
I needed the blur,
the soft edges,
the lie that told me
tomorrow could wait.
Reality was too sharp,
asking questions I didn’t have answers for,
holding mirrors I didn’t want to look into.
So I floated above it,
called it coping,
called it freedom,
anything but fear.
I wasn’t chasing joy—
I was running from myself,
from the weight of being present
in a life that hurt to touch.
Now I see it clearer:
I wasn’t weak,
just overwhelmed.
I didn’t want to disappear—
I just didn’t know
how to stay.
Everyone you meet
has something to teach you—
even the ones who stay a moment,
even the ones who leave too soon.
Some will show you kindness,
soft as sunlight on tired skin.
Some will show you strength,
quiet and unspoken,
the kind born from surviving.
Others will show you pain—
not to break you,
but to uncover the places
you still need to heal.
Some will teach you patience,
some will teach you boundaries,
and a few rare souls
will teach you love
in a way you never knew existed.
Every person is a chapter,
every encounter a line—
and whether you keep them
or let them go,
they shape you
in ways you won’t see
until later.
Everyone you meet
has something to teach you—
and sometimes
the lesson
is simply
who you’re becoming.
I leave my body without moving.
Eyes open, but I am elsewhere.
The room blurs, voices stretch thin,
and I hover just above myself
like smoke that forgot its fire.
Disassociation feels like safety,
but it is also loss.
A way of surviving the unbearable
by not being there at all.
Time folds in strange ways.
Minutes dissolve,
hours vanish,
days pass like a dream
I can’t quite remember
but can’t wake from either.
I watch my hands move,
hear my mouth speak,
but none of it belongs to me.
I am vaguely familiar to myself,
a stranger inhabiting my skin.
And yet,
this distance once saved me.
It kept me alive when being present
was too dangerous, too sharp, too much.
But now, healing asks me to stay.
To return,
to feel,
to sit inside my own body
without slipping through its seams.
Disassociation taught me survival.
Presence will have to teach me living.
There is something
self-destructive in me,
a part that reaches for fire
even when I know it burns.
It whispers when I’m tired,
pulls at me when I’m lonely,
tries to convince me
that chaos is comfort
and ruin is familiar.
So I have to be careful.
Gentle.
Honest with myself
about the places I am fragile
and the urges that pretend
to be escape.
I am learning
that awareness is protection,
that naming the darkness
keeps it from sneaking up on me.
I don’t shame myself
for the battles inside me —
I just hold my own hands tighter,
choose softer ways to survive,
and remind the hurt in me
that I’m not abandoning it
ever again.
Because I can be dangerous
to myself,
yes.
But I can also be
the one who saves me
if I stay aware,
stay gentle,
stay here.
No one determines our worth—
not the ones who doubted us,
not the ones who left,
not the ones who tried to shrink us
into something quieter
so they could feel louder.
We are not defined
by the people who couldn’t see us.
We are not measured
by the moments that broke us.
We are not small
just because someone else
was afraid of our size.
Our worth was carved into us
long before the world decided
to name our scars.
It lives in our survival,
in our softness,
in the way we rise again
even when the ground trembles.
No one determines our worth—
we do.
We rewrite the story,
we choose the truth,
we decide who we are
and who we refuse
to ever be again.
And if anyone tries
to tell you otherwise,
let them talk.
Let them underestimate.
Let them watch you grow
into everything they swore
you’d never become.
Because here’s the secret
they never wanted us to know:
our worth is ours.
Untouched.
Unbroken.
Undeniable.
And we don’t need permission
to rise.
Through the Fog 