Through the Fog

Tag: love

  • I Never Want to Leave This World Without Saying I Love You

    I think about how fragile life really is—

    how it slips between moments,

    how days turn into memories

    before we even realize we’re living them.

    And it hits me:

    I never want to move through this world

    quietly holding back the one thing

    that has always mattered most.

    I never want to leave this place

    without saying I love you.

    Not because I’m planning on going anywhere,

    not because I’m standing at any edge—

    but because this life is unpredictable,

    and the people who matter

    deserve to hear the truth

    while they’re still here to hold it.

    I love you

    in the simple ways,

    the human ways—

    in the way your voice steadies me,

    in the way your presence softens the noise,

    in the way something inside me

    finally feels understood.

    I love you

    in the ways I’ll never say out loud enough—

    in the small gratitude between heartbeats,

    in the quiet comfort of knowing

    you exist in the same world as me.

    If today were ordinary

    or extraordinary,

    if it were the first day

    or the last—

    I’d still want you to know.

    So hear it now,

    in case time gets away from me again:

    I love you.

    Not as a goodbye,

    but as a promise

    to speak the truth

    while it still has the chance

    to reach you.

  • Dead Flowers

    Photo Credit: Earl Wilcox

    Dead Flowers

    They sit on the table,

    stems bowed like prayers

    that were never answered.

    The petals curl inward,

    holding their last breath,

    fragile and stubborn

    against forgetting.

    I should throw them away.

    But I don’t.

    I let them stay—

    a monument

    to what once was alive

    and too beautiful to last.

    You’d laugh if you saw them now,

    these ghosts in a vase,

    color drained,

    smelling faintly of endings.

    I keep them

    like I kept your words—

    even when they started to rot.

    There’s a strange kind of comfort

    in decay.

    It reminds me that love

    was here once,

    that something bloomed,

    even if it died

    quietly.

    And maybe that’s enough—

    to know it lived,

    to know it mattered,

    to sit with the proof

    in a vase of dead flowers.

  • Tolls on Burnt Bridges

    The hardest part of getting clean

    are all the damn apologies—

    the ones I owe,

    the ones I can’t say,

    the ones that taste like regret

    and old habits.

    It’s paying tolls on bridges

    I’ve already burnt,

    walking back through smoke

    I started myself,

    trying to make peace with ghosts

    who remember me at my worst.

    Recovery isn’t just staying sober.

    It’s swallowing pride,

    owning the wreckage,

    and learning how to rebuild

    with hands that once only knew

    how to destroy.

    And God,

    some days it feels impossible—

    but I’m still here,

    paying the tolls,

    crossing the ashes,

    trying anyway.

  • Spring Cleaning

    I spent the whole day in my head,

    doing a little spring cleaning—

    sweeping out old thoughts,

    rearranging the ruins,

    throwing away the versions of me

    that never learned how to stay.

    I dusted off memories

    I swore I’d forgotten,

    found feelings in corners

    I thought I’d buried on purpose.

    Funny how the mind keeps things—

    the good, the poison, the almost-healed.

    Funny how even the broken parts

    fight to be remembered.

    And yeah,

    I’m always dreaming—

    of better days,

    of quieter nights,

    of a life that doesn’t feel borrowed

    or blurred around the edges.

    Some days I clean.

    Some days I collapse.

    Some days I live entirely in thoughts

    because reality feels too sharp to touch.

    But I’m trying—

    even if the progress is silent,

    even if the work is invisible,

    even if the only one who sees the difference

    is me.

  • For My Dad

    When I was little,

    I watched you like a storm I couldn’t predict.

    I loved you,

    but I was scared of you too—

    the tone in your voice,

    the weight of your silence,

    the way the room changed when you walked in.

    I thought love meant waiting to be noticed,

    trying to be small,

    trying to be good enough

    for the version of you

    that didn’t always show up.

    As I got older,

    the fear turned into anger

    because being scared of you hurt less

    than still wanting you to see me.

    I said I hated you,

    but I didn’t—

    I just didn’t know how to love someone

    who felt a million miles away

    even when you were right in front of me.

    And Mom always said

    we fought so much

    because we’re just alike—

    same fire, same walls,

    same stubborn need to win the argument

    instead of admit we were hurt.

    We lost years to misunderstanding.

    To pride.

    To wounds neither of us had the words to name.

    But time has a strange way

    of softening the edges we once bled on.

    Somewhere between growing up

    and growing tired of carrying old ghosts,

    I learned the truth:

    you weren’t the villain,

    you were a broken man trying to love

    in a world that never taught you how.

    And now—

    now we talk.

    Now we laugh.

    Now I can sit beside you

    without bracing for impact.

    And I’m grateful—

    not because the past didn’t hurt,

    but because we didn’t let it win.

    I don’t love you because you were perfect.

    I love you because we both changed.

    Because we both stayed long enough

    to learn each other again.

    Because I finally get to say this

    without fear, without anger, without a knot in my chest:

    I’m glad you’re still here.

    And I’m glad I am too.

  • The Comfort of My Mother

    I miss the comfort of my mother,

    the way her voice could quiet storms

    that the world never even saw coming.

    There was a time

    when her hands could fix anything—

    a scraped knee,

    a cracked heart,

    a day that felt too heavy to hold.

    Now the world presses harder,

    and I’m older,

    and she can’t protect me from it.

    But I still find myself wishing

    I could crawl back into that kind of safety—

    the kind that didn’t ask for explanations,

    that didn’t measure strength

    by how much pain you could hide.

    I miss her voice,

    the way she said my name

    like it was still small enough to save.

    I miss the comfort

    of knowing I didn’t have to carry everything.

    The weight of the world is lonely.

    And sometimes,

    all I want

    is my mother’s arms

    and a reason

    not to be brave for a little while.

  • Proud of Me

    I used to wait for someone else

    to tell me I was doing enough—

    like pride only counted

    if it came from outside of me.

    But I’ve lived too many battles

    nobody saw,

    survived nights

    no one clapped for,

    and healed wounds

    that never got applause.

    So now, being proud

    means something different.

    It means I don’t need an audience

    to honor my effort.

    It means I can look in the mirror—

    tired, messy, scarred—

    and say,

    “You didn’t quit.

    That’s worth something.”

    I’m proud of the way I keep breathing

    even when it feels like drowning.

    Proud of the things I had to unlearn

    just to stay alive.

    Proud of the softness I never let the world steal,

    even when it tried.

    Pride, to me,

    isn’t perfection.

    It’s proof.

    Proof that I’m still here,

    still trying,

    still building a life

    I don’t want to escape from.

    And maybe nobody else sees it,

    maybe nobody else says it—

    but I do.

    And that’s enough now.

    That counts.

    I’m proud of me.

    And that’s the first voice I’m choosing to believe.

  • The Promise of Fall

    Photo Credit: Marko Blažević

    And when the leaves begin to change,

    I’ll be there

    by the time they start to fall.

    Not early, not late—

    just in that quiet moment

    when the world exhales,

    and summer finally lets go.

    I’ll return like a ghost

    you almost stopped waiting for,

    carrying the kind of silence

    that only comes from distance.

    Maybe you won’t recognize me at first—

    grief weathers people

    the way autumn weathers trees.

    But I’ll know you,

    by the way your eyes still soften

    when the wind carries something familiar.

    And even if nothing is the same,

    even if the cold moves in too fast,

    I’ll still keep my promise—

    to show up

    right before everything fades.

  • I Wish You Were Here

    I wish you were here—

    not just in memory,

    not in dreams that vanish with the dawn,

    but here, breathing beside me.

    The nights are longer without you.

    The walls remember your laughter,

    but they don’t echo it right anymore.

    I keep reaching for a ghost

    that won’t reach back.

    Some days, I almost hear your voice,

    soft as wind against my skin,

    and I turn too quickly,

    forgetting—

    it’s just the world moving on without you.

    You should’ve seen the sunrise today.

    It broke through the clouds like hope

    pretending to be light.

    I stood there wishing

    you could’ve felt it too.

    I wish you were here—

    not because I need saving,

    but because some moments

    are too heavy to hold alone.

  • Don’t Let Me Down

    You say you won’t let me down.

    And I almost believe you.

    Because your voice sounds steady, your words sound like safety, and for a moment I forget what disappointment feels like.

    But I’ve heard those promises before — soft and certain, dripping from lips that never meant to stay. People promise things they can’t keep, not because they want to hurt you, but because they don’t know how deep the hurt already runs.

    You say you won’t let me down, but life has a way of proving otherwise.

    It’s not always betrayal that breaks me — sometimes it’s the quiet absence, the unanswered message, the way someone’s warmth fades without warning.

    I’ve learned that love doesn’t always mean safety, and trust doesn’t always mean forever. Sometimes “I won’t let you down” just means “I’ll try, until I can’t anymore.”

    And maybe that’s okay.

    Maybe the point isn’t to find someone who never lets me down — maybe it’s to learn how to stand up on my own when they do.

    Still, there’s a part of me that wants to believe you.

    That fragile, foolish part that hopes this time is different.

    That maybe when you say you won’t let me down… you mean it.