Through the Fog

Tag: Mental Health

  • Iā€™m Not the Villain

    Iā€™m done being the monster in a story

    I never wrote.

    Iā€™m done carrying the weight

    of every broken thing

    like it cracked because I breathed wrong.

    Iā€™m not the villain

    just because Iā€™m tired.

    Just because I bleed quietly.

    Just because I stopped pretending

    the hurt was ā€œcharacter building.ā€

    Iā€™m not the reason people leaveā€”

    they just didnā€™t want to stay

    in a world that didnā€™t revolve around them.

    They called my pain ā€œtoo muchā€

    because it couldnā€™t be fixed

    with a hug or a quote or a Bible verse.

    Iā€™m not the poison.

    Iā€™m the aftermath.

    The proof that someone elseā€™s damage

    landed on me first.

    I am not coldā€”

    I just learned the hard way

    that warmth gets taken from people like me

    without anyone noticing the theft.

    So noā€”

    Iā€™m not the villain.

    Iā€™m the one who crawled through the ashes,

    patched the wounds myself,

    and still got blamed

    for starting the fire.

    If that makes me hard,

    if that makes me bitter,

    if that makes me ā€œdifficultā€ā€”

    Then good.

    Let the ones who broke me

    choke on their version of the story.

    Iā€™m done apologizing

    for surviving a war they never saw.

  • Iā€™m Thinking Again

    Photo Credit: Aron Visuals

    I think and I think and I think.

    Until the thoughts start thinking me.

    Itā€™s like being trapped in a room with my own mind ā€” the walls covered in questions, the air thick with everything Iā€™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 ā€” an endless replay of memories, mistakes, what-ifs, and could-have-beens. I convince myself that if I analyze it just a little longer, Iā€™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 ā€œget out of your headā€ like itā€™s easy. Like it isnā€™t a maze with no map.

    They donā€™t see the noise behind my silence ā€” 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 canā€™t tell the difference between reflection and self-destruction.

    And maybe thatā€™s the cruelest part ā€” knowing that my mind is both the weapon and the wound.

  • Nothing Left to Fix

    I donā€™t want to be saved.

    Not tonight.

    Not by hope,

    not by promises that sound like recycled air.

    Iā€™m not broken in a way

    that healing can touch.

    Iā€™m worn down,

    thinned out,

    tired in a way sleep canā€™t reach.

    People say ā€œkeep fightingā€

    like the bleeding hasnā€™t already happened.

    Like thereā€™s some victory in dragging myself

    through another day

    that feels exactly like the last one.

    I donā€™t want answers.

    I donā€™t want light.

    I just want the noise in my head

    to stop scraping against my thoughts.

    If numbness is all I get,

    Iā€™ll take it.

    At least it doesnā€™t hurt

    to feel nothing.

    And maybe someday,

    when the world isnā€™t this heavy,

    Iā€™ll want more than breathing.

    But tonightā€”

    Iā€™m just here.

    Not living.

    Not dying.

    Just here.

  • Kerosene

    Iā€™m throwing kerosene

    on everything I love

    because it hurts less to watch it burn

    than to wait for it to leave.

    I donā€™t destroy things out of angerā€”

    I do it because I already know the ending,

    and Iā€™d rather be the one holding the match

    than the one left in the smoke.

    Thereā€™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 donā€™t trust softness.

    I donā€™t trust survival.

    I only trust the fireā€”

    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.

  • High Alert

    My body doesnā€™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.

    Itā€™s not that Iā€™m afraid of dyingā€”

    Iā€™m afraid of feeling this forever.

    The world moves in slow motion,

    but my thoughts race ahead,

    building fires where thereā€™s only smoke,

    seeing ghosts in harmless shadows.

    I tell myself Iā€™m safe,

    but my pulse calls me a liar.

    Thereā€™s no off switch,

    only exhaustion wearing my name.

    Still, I breatheā€”

    even if itā€™s shallow, even if it shakes.

    I remind myself:

    this is just my body trying to protect me,

    even when thereā€™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 whisperedā€”not yet.

    A trembling sound, small but alive,

    saying maybe thereā€™s still a sunrise

    I havenā€™t seen.

    I get so tired of that voiceā€”

    the voice of reason,

    always telling me thereā€™s more to live for,

    a glimmer of hope I donā€™t want to think about.

    The world feels heavy,

    pressing against my ribs,

    reminding me Iā€™m still here.

    And I amā€”

    shaking, breaking,

    breathing anyway.

    I donā€™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 theyā€™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 donā€™t want to open the gateā€”

    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 Iā€™m cold,

    understand thisā€”

    I am only guarding whatā€™s left.

    And if I keep the door locked,

    itā€™s not because I donā€™t care.

    Itā€™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 ā€”

    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 Iā€™m Working on Me

    Photo Credit: Aaron Burden

    You stay by my side while Iā€™m working on me.

    And that means more than youā€™ll ever know.

    Because this version of me isnā€™t easy to love.

    Iā€™m messy. Guarded. Sometimes distant for no reason.

    I disappear into my thoughts, into the weight of everything Iā€™m trying to fix.

    And still ā€” you stay.

    You donā€™t rush my healing or ask me to hurry back.

    You donā€™t fill the silence; you sit in it with me.

    You remind me that love doesnā€™t always need words ā€” sometimes itā€™s just presence, patience, quiet belief.

    I know Iā€™m not who I want to be yet.

    But Iā€™m trying.

    And your staying gives me the strength to keep trying.

    Because maybe thatā€™s what real love looks like ā€”

    not rescuing someone, not fixing them,

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

    So thank you ā€”

    for seeing the good that still flickers underneath the chaos,

    for standing next to someone whoā€™s still learning how to stand on their own.

    You stay by my side while Iā€™m working on me.

    And thatā€¦ thatā€™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 ā€” 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 didnā€™t ask for much, the person who said ā€œIā€™m fineā€ even when I was anything but. I built walls and called them boundaries. I called loneliness ā€œstrength.ā€

    The truth is, I didnā€™t want to be loved ā€” 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 youā€™re unworthy, love starts to feel like a threat.

    I thought I was somebody nobody could love.

    But maybe it wasnā€™t love that was missing ā€” maybe it was me.

    Maybe I left myself long before anyone else did.

    And now, slowly, painfully, Iā€™m learning to return.