There are things
I don’t talk about anymore.
Not because they stopped hurting.
Because I’ve carried them
for so long
they’ve become part of me.
Old heartbreaks.
Old mistakes.
The kind of memories
that show up uninvited
and sit quietly
in the corner of your mind.
I used to fight them.
Argue with the past.
Replay every choice
like I could somehow
change the ending.
But grief
doesn’t negotiate.
And regret
has never listened to reason.
So eventually
I stopped asking why.
Stopped demanding answers
from things
that were already over.
And something strange happened.
The pain didn’t disappear.
It just lost its voice.
It stopped being
the loudest thing
in the room.
Now it feels more like
an old scar.
Something I notice
when the weather changes.
Something that reminds me
where I’ve been
without deciding
where I’m going.
Maybe that’s healing.
Not forgetting.
Not moving on.
Just reaching a point
where the things
that almost broke you
no longer get to decide
who you are.
Because I am more
than my worst days.
More than my failures.
More than every chapter
I thought would be
the end of the story.
And maybe that’s what survival is—
looking at everything
that tried to destroy you
and realizing
it didn’t.
Through the Fog 