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.
Slow dancing at 2am,
George Strait humming low through the room,
bare feet on cold floors,
the world asleep
while we stay awake
inside this small, borrowed moment.
No crowd but the shadows,
no spotlight but the lamp in the corner.
Your hand at my waist
like it’s always known
where it belongs,
like this song was written
for the way we move together.
We sway without counting time,
letting George
tell the story for us—
about love that lasts,
about staying,
about choosing each other
without making a sound.
At 2am, nothing is rushed.
Nothing is heavy.
There is only you,
only me,
and a slow song playing softly enough
to feel like a promise
we don’t have to say out loud.
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.
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.
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.
In the early hours of morning,
when the world is barely awake
and the sky is holding its breath,
I find a quiet I can’t touch
at any other time of day.
The air feels softer then—
like it knows my name,
like it recognizes the weight
I carried through the night.
Streetlights hum their sleepy glow,
and shadows stretch long and gentle,
not to scare me,
but to remind me I’m not alone.
My thoughts move slower,
unrushed, unjudged,
wandering the dim edges of dawn
where everything feels honest.
In the early hours of morning,
I’m not trying to be anything—
not brave, not healed,
not whole.
I’m just a heartbeat
listening to the world exhale,
waiting for the sun
to rise over the parts of me
I’m still learning to love.
People ask me all the time where my thoughts come from,
like there’s some peaceful corner of my mind
where everything sits neatly in place.
I usually just laugh a little,
because if they really knew,
they’d probably never ask again.
My thoughts don’t come from pretty places.
They show up from the things I tried to bury,
the memories I hoped would stay quiet.
Half the time it feels like I’m digging up old ghosts
that refuse to stay dead.
People think inspiration is soft and beautiful.
Mine isn’t.
Mine comes from nights I couldn’t hold myself together,
from moments that broke me in ways I still don’t talk about,
from the weight I carry even when I swear I’m fine.
So when someone says,
“Where does your writing come from?”
I smile, because the real answer would make them uncomfortable.
It comes from the parts of me I don’t show.
The fears I wake up with.
The wounds that still ache.
The stories I survived but never really got over.
And honestly, I don’t write because it’s poetic
or because it makes me look deep.
I write because if I don’t get this stuff out of my head,
it just sits there and eats at me.
So yeah, people ask.
But the truth is simple:
My thoughts come from the places I wish they didn’t.
And most people really, truly don’t want to know.
(Even If You Don’t Love Yourself)
Know that you are loved
even if you don’t love yourself,
even if the mirror feels like a stranger
and your own heartbeat sounds borrowed.
Know that you are held
in ways you can’t always see —
in whispered prayers,
in the quiet hope someone sends your way
when you don’t even realize you need it.
You are loved
in the way dawn forgives the night,
in the way a bruised sky still softens at sunrise,
in the way life keeps giving you
one more breath to try again.
You don’t have to earn it.
You don’t have to feel it.
You don’t have to understand why.
Just know this:
on the days you’re breaking,
on the days you’re numb,
on the days you look at yourself
and can’t find a single reason to stay—
someone out there
is grateful that you’re here,
is rooting for your healing,
is carrying the love
you can’t yet carry for yourself.
And until you can feel it —
let that be enough.
Life is beautiful,
even when I don’t always see it—
even when the days blur together,
when the light feels distant,
when the weight in my chest
makes everything look dimmer
than it really is.
But beauty has a way
of slipping through the cracks—
in the sound of someone’s laughter,
in the warmth of a morning sunbeam,
in the quiet moments
I forget to appreciate
until they’re already gone.
I don’t always notice it,
don’t always feel it,
don’t always believe
the world still has softness
left for me.
But then something small happens—
a gentle word,
a familiar song,
a breath that comes easier
than the one before—
and it reminds me
that beauty doesn’t vanish,
it waits.
Life is beautiful,
even when I don’t always see it—
and maybe the seeing
will come easier
if I keep looking.
Through the Fog 