Through the Fog

Tag: meaning

  • My Thoughts

    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.

  • Blue Skies

    You can always find me where the skies are blue.

    Where the world feels a little lighter,

    where the weight on my chest loosens its grip

    just long enough for me to breathe like I used to.

    I go where the quiet lives.

    Where the sun breaks through the clouds

    and warms the parts of me I keep hidden.

    Where the wind carries my worries

    a little farther than I can reach.

    If I disappear,

    I’m not running—

    I’m just searching

    for the version of myself

    that doesn’t hurt so much.

    So if you’re looking for me,

    look where the skies open wide,

    where the world feels kind,

    where the color returns to my soul.

    That’s where I go

    when I need to remember

    that I’m still capable

    of something brighter

    than the storms I’ve survived.

  • I Feel Like Something’s Wrong When I’m Not Depressed

    I don’t know when it happened—

    when the heaviness became

    its own kind of home.

    When the silence tasted strange

    unless it carried a little ache.

    Some days I wake up light,

    breathing easier,

    and instead of feeling grateful,

    I flinch.

    Like joy is a trick

    and peace is just the calm

    before the next collapse.

    I look around for the darkness

    the way other people look for keys—

    worried I misplaced it,

    worried its absence means

    something worse is coming.

    It’s messed up, I know.

    But when you live in the storm long enough,

    sunlight feels like danger.

    Happiness feels like a costume

    you’re afraid to wear too long,

    in case someone rips it off

    and calls you out for pretending.

    I’m trying to relearn myself,

    trying to believe that ease

    doesn’t mean I’m slipping,

    that softness isn’t a symptom,

    that feeling okay

    doesn’t mean something’s wrong.

    But truth is—

    sometimes I only feel real

    when I’m hurting.

    And I’m still figuring out

    how to change that

    without losing who I am.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • I’m Thinking Again

    Photo Credit: Aron Visuals

    I think and I think and I think.

    Until the thoughts start thinking me.

    It’s like being trapped in a room with my own mind — the walls covered in questions, the air thick with everything I’ve ever done wrong. I keep trying to find the one thought that will unlock the door, the one truth that will make it all make sense. But every time I get close, the door moves.

    Thinking feels productive until it starts to hurt. Until it becomes a loop — an endless replay of memories, mistakes, what-ifs, and could-have-beens. I convince myself that if I analyze it just a little longer, I’ll figure out who I am, or why I keep ending up here. But the more I think, the less I feel. The more I search, the more lost I become.

    People say “get out of your head” like it’s easy. Like it isn’t a maze with no map.

    They don’t see the noise behind my silence — the war waged between logic and emotion, guilt and grace.

    I think and I think and I think, until my thoughts start to drown me. Until I can’t tell the difference between reflection and self-destruction.

    And maybe that’s the cruelest part — knowing that my mind is both the weapon and the wound.

  • Kerosene

    I’m throwing kerosene

    on everything I love

    because it hurts less to watch it burn

    than to wait for it to leave.

    I don’t destroy things out of anger—

    I do it because I already know the ending,

    and I’d rather be the one holding the match

    than the one left in the smoke.

    There’s a sick kind of peace

    in turning love into ash.

    No more hoping,

    no more reaching,

    no more waiting for the floor to fall out.

    I don’t trust softness.

    I don’t trust survival.

    I only trust the fire—

    it never pretends to stay.

    It just devours everything.

    So I burn it all down

    before it can ruin me,

    and the worst part is:

    the only thing that ever really turns to ash

    is me. The fire wins.