Through the Fog

Tag: love

  • 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.

  • Grandparents Are the Foundation

    Grandparents are the foundation —

    the quiet strength beneath generations.

    They are the hands that held the family together,

    the voices that carried stories through time,

    the hearts that gave love without asking for anything in return.

    They teach us patience by living it.

    They show us resilience not through words,

    but through the way they kept going

    even when life gave them reasons not to.

    When I think of my grandparents,

    I think of steady hands, warm kitchens,

    and a kind of love that didn’t need to be spoken.

    It was in the way they looked at you when you walked through the door,

    in the meals they made without asking what you wanted,

    in the way they remembered the small things you forgot to say.

    They built a world for us —

    brick by brick, sacrifice by sacrifice.

    And even now, when some of them are gone,

    I still feel their presence in the quiet moments.

    In the smell of coffee at dawn.

    In the songs that remind me of home.

    In the parts of me that still believe love can last forever.

    Grandparents are the foundation —

    of our stories, our strength, our becoming.

    And no matter how far we go,

    a piece of us will always be built from them.

  • While I’m Working on Me

    Photo Credit: Aaron Burden

    You stay by my side while I’m working on me.

    And that means more than you’ll ever know.

    Because this version of me isn’t easy to love.

    I’m messy. Guarded. Sometimes distant for no reason.

    I disappear into my thoughts, into the weight of everything I’m trying to fix.

    And still — you stay.

    You don’t rush my healing or ask me to hurry back.

    You don’t fill the silence; you sit in it with me.

    You remind me that love doesn’t always need words — sometimes it’s just presence, patience, quiet belief.

    I know I’m not who I want to be yet.

    But I’m trying.

    And your staying gives me the strength to keep trying.

    Because maybe that’s what real love looks like —

    not rescuing someone, not fixing them,

    but holding their hand while they rebuild themselves, piece by piece.

    So thank you —

    for seeing the good that still flickers underneath the chaos,

    for standing next to someone who’s still learning how to stand on their own.

    You stay by my side while I’m working on me.

    And that… that’s love.

  • I Made Peace With Being Forgotten

    I spent years believing I was unlovable.

    Not because anyone told me outright, but because life showed me in small, cruel ways — the way people left without warning, the way silence always followed honesty, the way I kept giving pieces of myself and watching them be forgotten.

    I thought I was somebody nobody could love.

    So I learned to disappear before anyone could confirm it.

    I became the friend who laughed too loud, the lover who didn’t ask for much, the person who said “I’m fine” even when I was anything but. I built walls and called them boundaries. I called loneliness “strength.”

    The truth is, I didn’t want to be loved — not really. I wanted to be seen and still chosen. I wanted someone to stay after finding out who I really was beneath the pretending. But when you spend enough time convincing yourself you’re unworthy, love starts to feel like a threat.

    I thought I was somebody nobody could love.

    But maybe it wasn’t love that was missing — maybe it was me.

    Maybe I left myself long before anyone else did.

    And now, slowly, painfully, I’m learning to return.

  • For My Aunt

    For My Aunt

    I’m so grateful for you.

    You’ve always been a strong pillar in my life — steady when everything else was shifting. You’ve loved me in ways that felt like safety, like understanding, like home.

    You’ve been like a mom to me — guiding me, grounding me, reminding me who I am when I start to forget.

    Thank you for showing up, for listening without judgment, for believing in me when I couldn’t believe in myself.

    I know there were times I was hard to handle as a child. I just didn’t understand the different dynamics with you and how it could feel so much like home.

    Your strength has carried me through more storms than you’ll ever know.

    And I hope you realize that every bit of light I find along the way has a little of yours in it.

  • You Are Enough

    Sometimes I wish I could go back to when I was a kid.

    Before the world got heavy. Before I learned how to hide my feelings behind forced smiles and polite lies. Before I started measuring my worth by how much I could give, fix, or prove.

    I wish I could find that small version of me — the one who still believed love was simple, that people stayed, that being herself was enough — and tell her, you don’t have to try so hard.

    You don’t have to be perfect.

    You don’t have to make everyone proud.

    You don’t have to carry everyone else’s pain just to feel like you matter.

    Somewhere along the way, I started believing I had to earn love — that I had to perform to deserve it. But I wish someone had told me earlier that being human was enough. That just existing — messy, emotional, imperfect — was okay.

    If I could sit beside that little girl now, I’d brush the hair from her face and whisper,

    You are enough.

    You always were.

    You just forgot for a while.

    And maybe that’s what healing really is — remembering what the world made you forget.

  • The Ocean at Dusk

    There’s something about the ocean that feels infinite.

    You can stand there for hours,

    watching the water breathe in and out,

    and still feel like you’ve barely seen it at all.

    When the sun begins to sink,

    the light turns to honey —

    soft, forgiving, alive.

    It touches the waves like a promise,

    and the horizon becomes a line between what is and what could be.

    In that hour, everything slows.

    The noise quiets,

    the thoughts settle.

    Even grief seems to pause long enough to listen.

    The ocean doesn’t demand anything from you.

    It just exists — endless, patient, vast.

    And somehow, that’s enough to remind you that you can, too.

    Watching the sun go down feels like watching hope shift form —

    it doesn’t disappear;

    it just changes colors.

    And when it finally slips beneath the water,

    you realize you’ve been holding your breath the whole time.

    The ocean is breathtaking not because it’s perfect,

    but because it reminds you of everything that still moves,

    still lives,

    still shines,

    even after the day ends.