Through the Fog

Tag: nostalgia

  • A Shade of Blue

    There’s a shade of blue

    that doesn’t live in the sky.

    It settles quieter than that—

    in the space between breaths,

    in the silence after a name

    you don’t say anymore.

    It isn’t loud enough

    to call itself sadness.

    It doesn’t break things.

    It just… stays.

    Like dusk

    that never quite turns to night,

    like water

    that looks still

    but pulls at you underneath.

    It shows up in small ways—

    in songs you don’t skip

    but don’t quite listen to,

    in moments that feel almost full

    but not enough to hold onto.

    You learn to carry it.

    That’s the strange part.

    Fold it into your days,

    wear it like something soft

    that doesn’t ask to be noticed

    but never lets you forget

    it’s there.

    And sometimes—

    in a flicker you didn’t expect—

    that blue

    catches a little light,

    and for a second

    it looks like something else.

    Not happiness.

    Not pain.

    Just a color

    that means

    you felt something

    and it stayed.

  • Apologies to the Past

    I’m sorry things ain’t what they used to be—

    I say it like an apology,

    like time took a wrong turn

    and I’m somehow to blame.

    We were softer then.

    Or maybe just less honest

    about the cracks forming underneath.

    Back when laughter came easier

    and silence didn’t feel so loaded.

    Now everything carries history.

    Every word knows what came before it.

    Every pause remembers

    how things fell apart

    without making a sound.

    I miss the simplicity—

    the way hope didn’t need proof,

    the way love didn’t feel like work

    or risk or loss waiting its turn.

    But I also know

    we didn’t lose something for nothing.

    People grow.

    Truth shows up.

    Life asks more of us

    than nostalgia can answer.

    So I’m sorry, yes—

    for the distance,

    for the change,

    for the way “used to be”

    still aches when I say it.

    But I’m learning

    that different doesn’t always mean broken.

    Sometimes it just means

    we survived long enough

    to become real.

  • The Flowers in the Vase

    The flowers in the vase are still beautiful, even as they begin to die.

    Their colors have softened, their edges curled inward — as if holding on to what little life remains. Every day they grow a little quieter, but somehow, they still make the room feel alive.

    There’s something haunting about beauty that’s temporary. You can see the way time touches it — gently, but inevitably. The petals fall, one by one, and yet I can’t bring myself to throw them away. Maybe it’s because they remind me that even endings can be beautiful.

    Sometimes I think love is like that — the flowers in the vase.

    We keep it close even after it’s faded, because letting go feels like erasing what once made us feel alive. We hold on to the memory of its bloom, even as it wilts in front of us.

    But maybe that’s what makes it real. The fact that it doesn’t last. The way it hurts to watch beauty fade — that’s proof that it mattered. That it was alive.

    And when I look at those flowers, I don’t see loss.

    I see the softness of something that once thrived, the quiet surrender of something that loved the sunlight so much it stayed open even as the light disappeared.

    Maybe beauty isn’t in the bloom after all.

    Maybe it’s in the staying — the way we keep something long after it’s gone, just to remember how it once made us feel.

  • The Last Inning

    When we were kids,

    the world was small enough

    to fit in a backyard

    and big enough

    to hold every dream we had.

    You were Jose Canseco,

    power in your swing,

    confidence loud and fearless.

    I was Pudge Rodriguez,

    steady behind the plate,

    trusting you to bring it home.

    Same dirt on our shoes.

    Same sunburned afternoons.

    Same belief that if we played long enough,

    nothing would ever change.

    We didn’t talk about the future.

    We just assumed it would include each other—

    like cousins always do,

    like best friends always promise

    without saying the words.

    Somewhere along the way,

    the seasons stopped lining up.

    Different paths.

    Different lives.

    Different versions of who we had to become

    just to survive.

    Now years sit between us

    like unopened letters.

    No fights.

    No big goodbye.

    Just silence that grew

    while we weren’t looking.

    I still think of you

    when memories get soft—

    when laughter used to come easy,

    when belonging didn’t feel complicated.

    I still remember us

    before adulthood taught us

    how to drift.

    You don’t know me anymore.

    Maybe you don’t even think of me.

    But I still carry that kid

    who stood at the plate

    trusting his cousin

    to be there.

    And even now,

    part of me hopes

    that somewhere inside you,

    you remember us too—

    not as strangers,

    not as silence,

    but as two kids

    on the same team,

    believing we were unstoppable.