"Are you happy?", she asks me.
And I wish she never did.
Are you happy?
What a loaded question.
And I hedge and stutter and hope that whatever I utter will be enough for her.
I don't want to lie,
I don't want to disappoint her with the knowledge that I am not happy in this life.
Because happiness is what every mother wants for her child.
And yet, I cannot answer in a straight line. Perhaps I am hoping that the more I keep answering and stumbling over words
she will begin to see the truth.
That happiness is work,
It is a hard earned struggle to rebirth something that makes
life worth living again.
Happiness is not always your friend,
but rather the illusive end that you seek,
always just out of reach.
So close yet so far that you wonder if it even exists for all the days of the week
that there are in the year.
Happiness has made me a cynic,
not of my own, but of others.
It has ruined my logic so that I can utter
the following sentence and be totally convinced that it makes sense.
"When I wear a smile, I'm lying, therefore
they are all liars."
That's the thing about lies,
if you spice them up with truth
they bear the ultimate disguise.
Happiness has made me stretch, has bent my back and broken it with the weight of never owning it.
The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, promising what it will,
and yet leaves you feeling emptier still.
More tired than when you started out, hungover on sick treaties of peace
from your battles,
ones that stipulate the terms of rest all while covering up the fine print of the text,
nauseous and green from a life time of disappointing phrases
that make you long for what's next.
Happiness is now something only others have,
I have run after it for too long
and only come away grasping and strands.
So when she asks me if I am happy,
I hedge.
I hedge and spout some nonsense
that I hope she would see through when in reality I want to answer
"No."
And have it be enough.
If I could answer that question honestly
I would say,
"No, but I know someday,
a day maybe a long way from here,
I will be.
And I have hope that everyday
I get closer to happy."
SK
