Through the Fog

Tag: Mental Health

  • High Alert

    My body doesn’t trust the quiet.

    Even silence hums like danger.

    Every creak, every breath,

    feels like the start of something breaking.

    My heart sprints with no finish line,

    my hands forget how to rest.

    It’s not that I’m afraid of dying—

    I’m afraid of feeling this forever.

    The world moves in slow motion,

    but my thoughts race ahead,

    building fires where there’s only smoke,

    seeing ghosts in harmless shadows.

    I tell myself I’m safe,

    but my pulse calls me a liar.

    There’s no off switch,

    only exhaustion wearing my name.

    Still, I breathe—

    even if it’s shallow, even if it shakes.

    I remind myself:

    this is just my body trying to protect me,

    even when there’s nothing left to run from.

  • Drain Me

    Photo Credit: Europeana

    I thought about drinking the end,

    letting it burn its way through the ache,

    turning pain into silence.

    But somewhere between thought and act,

    a voice whispered—not yet.

    A trembling sound, small but alive,

    saying maybe there’s still a sunrise

    I haven’t seen.

    I get so tired of that voice—

    the voice of reason,

    always telling me there’s more to live for,

    a glimmer of hope I don’t want to think about.

    The world feels heavy,

    pressing against my ribs,

    reminding me I’m still here.

    And I am—

    shaking, breaking,

    breathing anyway.

    I don’t want to die.

    I just want the pain to stop

    before it swallows me whole.

  • Boundaries

    They told me boundaries were healthy,

    but no one warned me they’d feel like loneliness.

    That saying no could echo so loudly

    inside a heart that only ever wanted to be seen.

    I built fences out of survival,

    not pride.

    Each post hammered in with memories

    of what it cost to trust the wrong hands.

    Now, when someone knocks,

    I hesitate.

    Not because I don’t want to open the gate—

    but because I still remember

    how it felt to be left bleeding in the garden.

    They say healing means protecting your peace,

    but sometimes peace looks like distance.

    Sometimes it means loving yourself enough

    to walk away before the breaking starts.

    So if you think I’m cold,

    understand this—

    I am only guarding what’s left.

    And if I keep the door locked,

    it’s not because I don’t care.

    It’s because I finally do.

  • 3:00 A.M. Confession

    Do you drown out your sorrows

    with whiskey, cocaine,

    a 3:00 a.m. panic

    and a prayer for change?

    Do your hands shake

    when the silence gets too loud,

    when your heart forgets

    what calm feels like?

    Do you chase peace

    the same way you chased the high —

    desperate, trembling,

    half alive, half gone?

    Because I do.

    Every night I beg the dark

    to let me start over,

    and every morning,

    I wake up still burning.

  • 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.

  • Drugs or Me

    Photo Credit: Mishal Ibrahim

    It was always drugs or me.

    And most days, even I would’ve chosen the drugs.

    They were easier to love. They didn’t need anything from me — just my time, my body, my sanity. They didn’t ask for truth, didn’t care about promises. They just made everything quiet for a while.

    I used to think they made me feel alive. But really, they just made me forget that I didn’t want to be. The high wasn’t joy — it was escape. A few seconds of peace borrowed from tomorrow.

    And every time I swore I’d stop, I meant it. Until I didn’t. Because the pain always came back louder, meaner, hungrier than before.

    You can’t love someone who’s already halfway gone.

    And I was disappearing one hit at a time — not dying fast, just fading slow.

    They say recovery is choosing yourself. But no one talks about how hard it is to love the person you became in the process. The shame, the memories, the wreckage you can’t sweep clean.

    It was drugs or me.

    And for the longest time, I didn’t think I was worth choosing.

    But maybe now — shaky, sober, surviving — maybe I’m learning that I am.

  • Once… She Wrote a Poem

    Photo Credit: Nik

    Once, she wrote a poem.

    Not for love,

    not for beauty,

    but because the ache inside her

    needed somewhere to go.

    She didn’t write to be understood—

    she wrote to stay alive.

    Each word a pulse,

    each line a breath she wasn’t sure she’d take otherwise.

    The paper never judged her.

    It didn’t tell her to move on

    or to smile more.

    It just listened

    and held her pain like it mattered.

    She wrote about the ghosts she carried,

    the nights that wouldn’t end,

    the kind of loneliness

    that made her forget her own name.

    And when she finished,

    she didn’t feel healed—

    but she felt seen.

    Even if only by the page.

    Now, when she looks back,

    she doesn’t just see ink—

    she sees survival.

    She sees a girl

    who refused to let silence

    be the last word.

    Once, she wrote a poem.

    And maybe that was the moment

    she began to come back to life.

  • Hate is a Strong Word But..

    Photo Credit: Mattia

    I Hate Myself

    Not loudly. Not dramatically. Quietly. Constantly.

    It lives under my skin, humming like an old fluorescent light that never shuts off.

    I hate the way I breathe through days I don’t want.

    I hate how my body moves like a ghost inhabiting something that isn’t mine.

    I hate the weight of existing — the endless cycle of pretending, collapsing, rebuilding, pretending again.

    I’ve tried to love myself, but every time I get close, I pull away.

    Maybe because love feels like a lie when you’ve learned to survive without it.

    Maybe because hating myself feels safer — familiar, predictable.

    I’ve carved apologies into my silence.

    I’ve bled forgiveness that never came.

    And still, the mirror waits — patient, cruel — asking who I am without the pain.

    But I don’t know anymore.

    Maybe there’s nothing left underneath it.

    Maybe I’ve become the echo of every broken promise I ever made to myself.

    And maybe that’s why it’s so quiet now.

    Because even my soul is tired of screaming.

  • Beneath the Surface

    It’s more than just the cut.

    It’s the moment before it —

    when the world feels too heavy to hold

    and your own skin feels like a cage.

    It’s the silence that builds inside your chest,

    the scream you never let out,

    the ache you can’t name

    that demands to be seen somehow.

    People see scars and think they know the story.

    But they don’t see the nights you fought it.

    The times you cried yourself to sleep and woke up still fighting.

    The way you learned to smile so no one would ask questions.

    It’s not about wanting to die —

    it’s about not knowing how to live

    with the weight you carry.

    And maybe one day,

    you’ll look at those scars and see something different.

    Not shame. Not weakness.

    But proof —

    that you survived every version of yourself

    that thought you couldn’t.

    Because it’s more than just the cut.

    It’s the healing that came after,

    the courage it took to stay,

    and the quiet strength of a heart

    that refused to stop beating

    even when it wanted to.