Happiness is a Construct

An unfurrowed brow

A taste for happiness

Instead of chaos

Chaos runs through my veins

After a long hiatus of domestication

And I don’t know

If I’ll ever get away

But perseverance saves the day

At least

That's what people say

And if there’s one thing I have

It’s the ability to persevere

Built up from a lifetime of hurt

Heartache, disease, addiction, death

In the space of a breath

Life can turn from gentle to unrest

Answers become questions

Questions becomes meaningless

And then where do we find meaning?

I’ve been told what you need to be happy

Is meaning, purpose, and value

And I’ve been looking for these

Every place I can think to look

You can scour every book

Every cranny, every nook

But happiness lives in your mind

It’s a construct not everyone can easily find

And maybe I choose not to be happy

Like a toddler throwing a tantrum

Because I’m not getting what I want

Or what I think I want

And maybe I choose not to be happy

Like an old man ordering kids off my lawn

Sequestering my heart, my life

Hiding behind the walls of my strife

But walls can’t keep a ghost away

A ghost who’s died many times over

And can move through walls

And fade into aether

But to live haunted

Is also a choice

I turn within

Listen to that voice

And I hear the voice

But have trouble discerning

It’s meaning, the words,

The pain, yearning

With thoughts churning

I freeze time

Work to align

A future of endless possibility

With the reality I see

With broken eyes, a twisted mind

But if I can repair them, untwist

Maybe I’ll see

That I just need to let

The past rest and the future be.

This poem was written by @MeeJong and @LedLevee.