How Hard Would You Try to be Happy?

Poetry in free verse

Sometimes we try too hard to be happy.

If I got that job.
If I had more money.
If I could make that person come back to me.

We try so hard, that all we can focus on is the darkness.

Like a camera zoomed in too much on a photo,
all we see are the blurred edges of long-held grief.
It’s festering there, mold growing on its surface,
giving the emptiness a new scent, a new taste.

We get so lost in that grief,
that we turn blind
to all the beauty life has given us for free.

The pi-tuh pay-tuh of the raindrops falling against your windowpane,
the bright purple and white colors of the flower that blossomed this morning,
the vibrant green of the trees on your way to work,
the laughter of the baby in front of you at the supermarket queue,
how the night sky comes alive with the twinkle of silver stars,
how the birds chirp and coo, singing their happiness out in the world.

How can you be happy by just looking at these? you ask,
There are people who don’t have money to eat,
whose homes are torn by war every month,
who are dying of a disease mankind hasn’t invented a cure for.

How will they be happy looking at nature’s gifts?

I don’t know what it’s like to sleep hungry,
but I know what it’s like to be unable to eat because my heart is breaking.

I don’t know what it’s like to have wars tear my house down,
but I know what it’s like to have a war inside my home,
hidden, secret, so everyone else thinks my family is “happy.”

I do know what it’s like to die of a disease
mankind hasn’t invented a cure for.
But it’s a disease of the mind, not the body,
I can’t show you what hurts,
all I know is that sometimes,
there’s a pain in my chest so sharp,
I feel I can’t breathe anymore.
On mornings, I don’t recognize the person I’ve become.
A younger me would be so ashamed.

And I know you’ve felt this too.

I don’t know you, but I know Sadness spares no one,
and no matter what we do, she won’t go away.

So, why don’t we learn to keep her with us?
Show her that she can live in my heart,
but my heart is big enough to welcome Happiness as well.

I don’t have to stop being sad to be happy.

And I know you can do that too.
I don’t know you,
but I know you can be happy without letting Sadness go.

The question is:
how hard would you try to be happy?

© Anangsha Alammyan 2021