Hollow Happiness

There was a joy once, a sickly thing

All bones and grays and dark circles.

Malnourished in spirit and neglected in blood.

But its striking beauty had still lived,

Still existed in the dark hours,

Still fluttered on the broken wings of a bird

Somehow soaring through the trees.

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Now, now it has gone south.

Dead before earning the chance to hibernate.

Gone and forgotten like the warm winds of spring.

The world will never thaw again,

Not when joy’s frail little carcass

Burned beneath the judgmental heat of anguish

And melted across the summer pavement.

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It is gone and I fear I am too.

Caught in the sticky web of something dark,

Something more malicious than my old friend Fear,

I am unmoving, trapped under the thick skin

Of a night that has long lost its beauty and bravery.

Where will I go when the sun has set?

What will I do when dawn arrives?

Purpose has fled, or has joy stolen that too?

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Ramblings pour from my mouth like the empty promises

Apocalyptic daughters heard from dying mothers,

The final embers of a world we wish we could forget.

They lodge themselves in our hollow souls

Where joy slept and wept and kept

Us safe from a host of monsters

Wishing only to be our friends in our nightmares.

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Instead, we tied them up and shoved them deep

In our closets besides skeletons and rivers

Of memories that create rivulets of sweat

That drip into our eyes and blur our vision,

Obscure the truth with pain and terror

Until we’re writhing in the dark under sheets

Trying to ignore the heartbeat of pain in our bellies.

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Joy has become the king of kings,

The thief to rule a world of demons.

It slithers around our tongues and ties them up,

Holds our words hostage while it glitters in our eyes

And promises things it will never try to deliver.

It whispers and giggles and bares its teeth.

There is no hiding from the thief.

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So I sit in the closet with my skeletons and my own

Torrential downpour of traumatic memories

That fills the void Joy left within me.

I’ll weep and tremble beneath the emptiness

Flung over the horizon and cracking through the Earth

Just to avoid the skeletal fingers of Joy

Threatening to pull me beneath the waves of agony.