I want to change everything—
not out of hate for who I was,
but out of love for who
I’m finally brave enough
to become.
I’m tired of surviving days
that were meant to be lived.
Tired of shrinking myself
to fit places that never felt like home.
So I’ll start small—
a thought, a boundary, a choice.
And one by one,
the life I’ve been carrying
will learn how to let me go.
I don’t need to burn it all down.
I just need to stop building
on what was breaking me.
These words are all I have—
the only way I know
to bleed without breaking,
to speak without shattering
the pieces I’m still holding together.
I can’t hand you my heart
without it trembling,
can’t show you my scars
without feeling them reopen,
so I write instead—
hoping you hear the truth
hiding between the lines.
These words are all I have
when my voice won’t steady,
when the ache in my chest
is louder than anything I could say.
So I offer them softly,
quiet as a confession,
fragile as a prayer—
hoping you’ll read them
and understand
that everything I feel
is here on the page,
because it’s the only place
I’m not afraid
to let it live.
Sober didn’t fix my broken—
it just turned the lights back on.
And suddenly I had to face
every crack I’d tried to drown,
every scar I’d blurred into silence,
every memory I’d washed in poison
just to make it bearable.
Sober didn’t make me whole;
it made me aware—
of the pieces that don’t fit anymore,
of the heaviness I still carry,
of the storms that still rise
even when my hands are clean.
But maybe healing isn’t the miracle
people make it out to be.
Maybe it’s the slow work
of learning to live
with the parts of yourself
you used to run from.
Maybe sober isn’t the cure—
maybe it’s the chance.
The chance to rebuild,
to feel without collapsing,
to hurt without disappearing,
to stay alive long enough
to find the pieces
that still want to shine.
Sober didn’t fix my broken.
But it gave me the hands
to start picking myself up.
And maybe—
for now—
that’s enough.
You whisper like you know me,
like you built me,
like I wouldn’t be standing here
without you holding my hand.
But listen closely—
I’m not yours anymore.
I hear you in the quiet moments,
trying to slip back into my breath,
telling me you can make it easier,
that you can take the weight off my shoulders.
But you never carried anything
except pieces of me
you stole.
You say you miss me.
I don’t doubt it.
Parasites always miss the body
they drain.
You say I was better with you—
no, I was quieter,
numb,
half-alive,
a shadow of the person
you were killing slowly.
You were never comfort.
You were a cage.
So let me be clear:
I don’t need you
to feel less.
I’m learning how to feel
and still survive.
You can whisper all you want—
but I’m done mistaking your voice
for my own.
This time,
I walk away.
This time,
I choose breath over burning,
light over lies,
life over you.
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.
The cost of my living
was more than I planned.
So I held the needle
like a gun in my hand.
Not outta courage —
outta exhaustion.
Outta that please-make-it-stop kind of silence
that burns louder than any scream.
Even now — clean —
my hands still remember the weight.
They twitch when the world gets heavy,
like muscle memory don’t know I’m trying to live.
They call this recovery.
But it feels like standing
in the ashes of a house I built myself
and telling my lungs,
“Go on. Breathe.
It’s safe now.”
But it never feels safe, does it?
I miss the numb.
I miss the nothing.
But I want the morning more.
I want the shaking and the sunlight
and the proof —
the proof that I can outlive
my own escape route.
Yeah, the cost of living is still high,
but I’m paying it differently now.
One breath.
One truth.
One trembling day at a time.
And I’m still here —
still here —
still paying.
Still worth the price.
They don’t tell you this part—
sobriety doesn’t erase the memories.
I still miss the high.
I miss the numb,
the blur,
the way the world melted just long enough
for me to forget I was hurting.
There are days I crave the nothingness,
days when pain feels louder than progress,
when the urge whispers,
“One more time won’t kill you.”
But I know better—
it almost did.
More than once.
Sobriety isn’t a clean break.
It’s a war with the version of myself
who still thinks relief comes in liquid,
in powder,
in pills,
in poison that used to feel like peace.
I don’t stay sober because I stopped wanting the high.
I stay sober because I finally realized
the high never loved me back.
It just made the fall quieter.
It made the pain delayed—
not gone.
Now happiness is different.
It’s small.
Subtle.
Hard-earned.
It comes in mornings I don’t regret,
in nights I remember,
in breathing that doesn’t taste like escape.
I don’t always feel strong.
But I feel present.
And maybe that’s what living really is—
missing the high
and still choosing the heartbeat.
Recovery isn’t the clean, steady climb people imagine it to be.
It’s not a straight line, and it’s not always inspiring.
Sometimes it’s messy and painful — full of steps backward, relapses of thought, and nights spent questioning whether I’m really getting better or just getting used to the ache.
I’m fragile in recovery.
I wake up some days full of hope, and by nightfall, I’m drowning in doubt again. The smallest thing — a memory, a song, a smell — can pull me back into the dark, and I hate how easily I break. But breaking is part of it. Healing doesn’t mean the cracks disappear; it means learning how to live with them.
People think recovery is about strength, but I’ve learned it’s mostly about endurance — about showing up when your hands are still shaking. About forgiving yourself when you fall apart again, even after promising you wouldn’t.
There’s no finish line here.
No moment where I suddenly become whole again.
There’s just me — fragile, trembling, trying.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe being fragile in recovery means I’m still fighting,
still choosing life,
even when the weight of it threatens to break me.
Through the Fog 