Through the Fog

Tag: survival

  • Don’t Tell Me to Relax

    Trauma doesn’t leave

    just because you say relax.

    Don’t talk to me like this is a choice,

    like I’m holding tension for fun,

    like my body didn’t learn this

    the hard way.

    You think calm is a switch.

    You think if you say the right words

    my pulse will forget

    every moment it had to protect me

    when no one else did.

    My body didn’t overreact—

    it adapted.

    It learned danger before language,

    learned survival before comfort,

    learned that staying alert

    was the only way to make it out alive.

    So don’t tell me to relax

    when my nervous system

    was trained in chaos.

    Don’t call it anxiety

    when it’s memory

    with nowhere else to go.

    Trauma lives in muscle.

    In breath that cuts short.

    In sleep that never stays deep.

    In the way I scan rooms

    even when nothing is happening.

    You want calm?

    Then bring safety.

    Real safety.

    Consistent safety.

    The kind that shows up

    even when I’m difficult,

    even when I’m shaking,

    even when I don’t know

    how to explain what’s wrong.

    Until then,

    don’t ask me to relax.

    Ask what happened.

    Ask what it took to survive.

    Ask why my body learned

    this language

    before it ever learned peace.

  • Living in Agony

    I am living in my agony,

    not visiting it,

    not passing through on the way to something better—

    I’ve unpacked here.

    Learned the hours.

    Memorized the sound of my own breathing

    when the night stretches too wide.

    Pain isn’t dramatic anymore.

    It doesn’t shout.

    It hums.

    Low and constant,

    like a refrigerator in the dark—

    easy to ignore until the power goes out

    and you realize how loud it always was.

    I wake up already tired,

    already negotiating with myself

    about how much truth I can afford today.

    Some days I give nothing.

    Some days I bleed quietly into routine

    and call it productivity.

    I carry my agony politely.

    I hold doors.

    I smile.

    I ask other people how they’re doing

    and mean it—

    because focusing on their lives

    keeps me from inventorying my own wreckage.

    But it’s there.

    In the pauses.

    In the way I flinch at kindness

    like it might ask something of me later.

    In how I brace myself

    even when nothing is coming.

    Living in my agony means

    learning the weight of unshed tears,

    how they press behind the eyes,

    how they settle in the chest

    like a language I never learned to speak aloud.

    It means knowing that healing isn’t linear—

    it’s circular.

    You come back to the same wounds

    wearing different names,

    hoping this time they recognize you

    as someone who survived.

    I don’t romanticize this.

    There is nothing beautiful about endurance

    when it costs you pieces you can’t replace.

    There is nothing noble

    about being strong so long

    you forget what rest feels like.

    And still—

    I keep going.

    Not because I’m brave.

    Not because I believe everything will work out.

    But because something stubborn in me

    refuses to let the pain have the last word.

    Living in my agony

    doesn’t mean I’ve given up.

    It means I’m honest about where I am.

    It means I’m still here,

    even when here hurts,

    even when the only victory

    is making it to the end of the day

    without disappearing.

    This is not a cry for saving.

    It’s a statement of fact.

    A line drawn in the dirt

    that says:

    this is where I stand,

    this is what I carry,

    and despite it all—

    I am still breathing.

  • What Have I Become

    What have I become, my sweetest friend,

    when even your silence sounds like judgment?

    When you look at me

    like I’m something you remember

    but don’t recognize anymore.

    I’m made of aftermath now

    of things that didn’t kill me

    but stayed anyway.

    I learned how to survive by shrinking,

    by numbing the sharp edges

    until nothing cut

    and nothing healed.

    I speak in half-truths.

    I smile like it’s a habit I can’t break.

    I carry my worst thoughts

    like contraband

    hidden, heavy, always with me.

    I wasn’t born this hollow.

    I was worn down.

    Sandpapered by time,

    by love that took more than it gave,

    by nights that taught me

    how easy it is to disappear

    without going anywhere.

    If you’re still calling me friend,

    don’t ask me to be better.

    Don’t ask me to go back.

    That person didn’t survive this.

    This is what’s left

    quieter, darker,

    harder to love,

    still breathing

    like that’s supposed to mean something.

  • Experience, Misnamed

    What made us think we were wise—

    was it the way we survived

    without stopping to ask

    what it was costing us?

    We confused endurance with understanding,

    mistook scars for proof,

    called repetition experience

    and believed pain automatically meant growth.

    We spoke with certainty

    before we learned how little we knew.

    Loved like permanence was guaranteed.

    Spent time like it couldn’t betray us.

    We thought being strong meant staying,

    that knowing better would come later,

    that consequences were lessons

    meant for someone else.

    But wisdom didn’t arrive in confidence—

    it came quietly,

    through loss,

    through regret,

    through the ache of realizing

    we would choose differently now.

    Maybe we weren’t wise.

    Maybe we were just brave enough

    to keep going

    without instructions.

  • When the Magnolias Bloom

    When the magnolias bloom,

    the world remembers how to soften.

    White petals open like quiet forgiveness,

    thick with scent and patience,

    unhurried by whatever we rushed through.

    They bloom after the cold

    as if it never owned them,

    as if survival didn’t leave marks.

    No announcement.

    No apology.

    Just beauty insisting on itself.

    I think about timing then—

    how some things wait until they’re ready,

    how some hearts don’t open

    until the frost finally loosens its grip.

    How blooming late

    doesn’t mean blooming wrong.

    When the magnolias bloom,

    I let myself believe in return.

    In second chances that don’t explain themselves.

    In tenderness strong enough

    to come back every year

    without asking who stayed to see it.

    And for a moment,

    everything feels possible again—

    not because life is easy,

    but because something beautiful

    chose to open anyway.

  • Gratitude

    I don’t always say it out loud,

    but I’m grateful.

    Not in some big, dramatic way —

    just in the quiet, steady way you feel

    when you look back and realize

    you survived things you thought would break you.

    I’m grateful for the people who stayed,

    and even the ones who left,

    because they taught me something

    I didn’t know I needed.

    I’m grateful for the days that felt impossible

    and the nights I didn’t think I’d make it through,

    because somehow I did.

    I’m grateful for the small things —

    the ones nobody notices

    but somehow keep me going:

    a warm drink,

    a song I forgot I loved,

    a moment where my chest doesn’t feel so heavy.

    And I’m grateful for myself,

    even if I don’t say it enough.

    For the version of me that kept trying

    when it would’ve been easier to give up.

    Gratitude doesn’t fix everything,

    but it reminds me that not everything is broken.

    And some days,

    that’s enough.