HAPPINESS

What is it really?
This elusive state
We call happiness.
Does it have a life of its own?
Or can it only exist
When something
Or someone
Triggers it?

A face, a smile, a song, a place …
A hug … embedded in your memory,
Recalling the times you felt safe and loved?

The books all say
'Happiness comes from within'.
But what I want to know
Is what gets it in there …
Deep inside, and makes it stay.
So that you wake up in the morning
Thinking today is a wonderful day.
And I'm so happy that I'm alive.
Wanting to grasp it all
Quickly, before the day becomes dull,
Like when the sun hides behind a cloud.
And the familiar aches creep in.

Happy, it's said, means being content
With what you have,
Not always wanting more.
Living in the present,
Not in some imagined better future.

But for those who really have nothing
And no-one to cling on to …
They can only hope their turn will come,
Or life would be intolerable …

We need our dreams.

But we are greedy now.
We think it's our right to have more,
Insatiable … always craving that second helping,
Our hunger rarely satisfied.
Because the euphoria that accompanies
Those feelings of true happiness
Is cruelly addictive.
And you need that next fix
Coursing through your veins.
And you need it now.
Or the day will be wasted.

And there is no answer to that question.
Or maybe there is …
Is it that love equals happiness?
We're human … we can't live without it …
And life goes inexorably on.

With it …or without it.

And we need our dreams ...