Through the Fog

Tag: meaning

  • Learning to Stay

    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.

  • The World Wouldn’t Stop Turning

    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.

  • Trying to Outrun Myself

    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.

  • Disassociate

    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.

  • 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.

  • No Place for the Weary

    Photo Credit-Leon-Pascal Jc

    I rolled them 7’s

    with nothing to lose,

    the table cold,

    the night mean,

    and luck looking at me sideways

    like it knew exactly who I was.

    This ain’t no place

    for the weary kind —

    not for hearts that bruise easy,

    not for hands that shake

    when the stakes get high.

    Out here, pain is currency,

    and everyone’s broke

    before the first drink hits the glass.

    I’ve gambled with ghosts,

    traded my future for a flicker,

    dared the darkness

    to take its best shot.

    And every time,

    the world leans in close

    and whispers through its teeth,

    you sure you’re built for this?

    But I keep rolling,

    keep breathing through the smoke,

    keep standing in rooms

    that were never meant to soften for me.

    Because somewhere in the rubble

    of all I’ve survived,

    there’s a fire that won’t burn out,

    a stubbornness that refuses

    to bow to the night.

    I rolled them 7’s

    with nothing to lose —

    and maybe that’s the trick of it:

    when the world wants you broken,

    staying on your feet

    is the boldest bet you’ll ever make.

  • When it Rains

    There’s got to be a break in the monotony—

    but Jesus, when it rains,

    how it pours.

    One bad day becomes three,

    and suddenly the whole week feels

    like a storm I never learned to stand in.

    I keep waiting for the clouds to part,

    for the world to give me

    just one soft moment,

    one breath that doesn’t feel borrowed.

    But life keeps dropping weight on me

    like it thinks I can’t be broken,

    like I haven’t cracked a hundred times already.

    Still, somewhere underneath the thunder,

    I hold on—

    not because I’m strong,

    but because the storm can’t last forever,

    even when it feels like it will.

    There’s got to be a break in the monotony,

    and maybe the pouring rain

    is just the sky making room

    for something better to grow.

  • These Words Are All I Have

    Photo Credit-Bas Glaap

    These words are all I have—

    the only way I know

    to bleed without breaking,

    to speak without shattering

    the pieces I’m still holding together.

    I can’t hand you my heart

    without it trembling,

    can’t show you my scars

    without feeling them reopen,

    so I write instead—

    hoping you hear the truth

    hiding between the lines.

    These words are all I have

    when my voice won’t steady,

    when the ache in my chest

    is louder than anything I could say.

    So I offer them softly,

    quiet as a confession,

    fragile as a prayer—

    hoping you’ll read them

    and understand

    that everything I feel

    is here on the page,

    because it’s the only place

    I’m not afraid

    to let it live.

  • In the Early Hours of Morning

    Photo Credit-Daniil Onischenko

    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.

  • What Waits in the Quiet

    Photo Credit: Martin Adams

    It’s the presence that waits for you in the silence,

    the thing that doesn’t need eyes

    to watch you.

    It slips in when the room goes quiet,

    when the air grows still,

    when you finally think you’re alone.

    It’s patient—almost gentle—

    as it curls around the edges of your thoughts

    like frost spreading across a windowpane.

    You don’t see it.

    You feel it.

    A slow awareness that something is there,

    too close,

    too familiar.

    It rearranges your memories

    just slightly—

    enough to make you question

    what happened

    and what you think happened.

    It blurs the line between the two

    until you can’t trust the ground you’re standing on.

    It whispers in a voice

    that sounds almost like yours,

    but not quite—

    like someone learned your tone

    by listening through the walls.

    It knows the places your mind goes

    when you’re tired.

    It knows the thoughts you’re afraid to admit to yourself.

    It knows the cracks in your armor,

    the ones you swear aren’t visible.

    And it sits there,

    in the dim corners of your mind,

    waiting for the moment

    you confuse its breath for your own.

    Because that’s how it gets you—

    not with fear,

    not with violence,

    but with familiarity.

    It doesn’t need to break down the door.

    It only needs you to open it

    thinking you’re letting yourself in.