It felt like a fog,not the kind that dances with sunlight,

but the kind that swallows whole cities. 

Dense, gray, endless. 

It felt like walking through wet cement, each step a negotiation, 

each breath a truce with gravity. 

The world moved on in full speed, and I was Drowning. 

It felt like silence, not the peaceful kind, 

but the deafening kind, 

that made my own thoughts scream louder. 

“You’re not enough. You’ll never be enough.” Their echoes carved homes in my skull. 

It felt like forgetting. Forgetting the taste of laughter, the color of joy, 

the texture of hope. 

Everything I once loved 

felt like it belonged to someone I used to know. 

It felt like noise, 

like a thousand radio stations tuned to static, 

all playing at once in my head. And me, 

fumbling with the dial, praying for silence. 

It felt like a mask, 

painted in shades of "I’m fine," worn so long 

I forgot the contours of my own face. “Smile,” they’d say. 

So I smiled. 

Because explaining why I couldn’t felt harder than pretending I could. 

It felt like a thief, stealing my mornings, my nights, 

my ability to dream. 

It left me with only exhaustion, 

a tired so deep no amount of sleep could cure. 

It felt like drowning, but without the water. 

Like my lungs had betrayed me, learning to breathe despair instead of air. 

It felt like being alive, but wishing I wasn’t. 

Not in a dramatic, stormy way, but in a quiet longing 

a desire to simply, just stop. 

But then, 

it started to feel different. 

It felt like a hand, soft but steady, 

reaching through the fog. A voice that whispered, "You’re not alone." 

It felt like baby steps, a shuffle, a stumble, 

a climb out of the abyss. It wasn’t pretty. 

It wasn’t quick. 

But it was mine. 

It felt like sunlight that didn’t burn, but warmed. 

Like the first breath after the storm. 

It felt like hope, 

fragile and flickering, but alive and now, 

when it feels like slipping again, I remind myself 

I’ve been there before. 

And I made it through. 

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