A poem on joy.
photo from @heartmanclothes
Happiness. It's what we are all looking for. Some of us spend our whole lives searching for happiness, yet others find it easily. Joy has always been a subject of questioning for me, a feeling that we can't always tie to science and a feeling that we don't always know the reasoning behind.
"The Happiness Man" is a short piece I wrote on joy and how we find it.
The Happiness Man.
Written by Olivia Fan.
He saw it in the fields that sang
when children drank happiness in liquid form.
Oh how easily they found it without trying.
He found it in the stolen kisses and hidden giggles.
Where they were so wrapped up in each others' embrace
that their souls were flooded with it.
How naive yet how carefree
the youth were.
They welcomed it and let it consume them.
He had to rummage a while to find it in his next voyage,
for it was buried under ticking clocks and yellowing mail.
But he found it eventually,
tucked away with the rattles of the newborn baby.
He caught glimpses of it here and there
Stored away in dilapidated drawers and fading memories.
He missed it when they were aging away,
the sands of time seeping quickly through their fingers.
He journeyed across the world,
perused every corner,
eyes crinkling every time it appeared.
He collected it with his eyes.
Yet every time he reached out for it,
it left him.
He was the master of it.
He knew where it lurked,
where it was forgotten,
where it found friends.
Yet he never once touched it.
Oh how he yearned for it!
Every second of every hour
he wished for it to accompany him.
When he was graying and slow
with his days in countdown,
it came up to him.
It whispered to him with no words,
yet he knew what it had to say.
joy is not found in others.
joy is not found by searching.
joy is not found in organized patterns.
Instead...
Joy comes to us when we need it.
Joy comes to us when we ask for it.
Joy comes to us when we want it.
And with his final breath,
he finally felt it hum within him.
Essentially,
Olivia.
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