The Difference Between Happiness And Joy. {poetry}
{source}
To feel joy
Is not to wrap myself in the blank word
The blanket
Of happiness
It is not
Swaddling and pulling so tightly
That my toes turn blue
From the force of my longing
But it’s okay because
I’m happy
Or I am going to be
With that
Next party
Next friendship
Next next thing
Happiness
A word stuffed full of expectation
So stuffed
It is a landfill
Bursting open with garbage bag disappointments
The idea of it
The mania of it
All upswing, no downswing
All up and up and up
Where is the descending arc?
The fall?
Like the season, it’s going to come
And I can kick my heels and scream No No
I have to be happy
If I am not happy, I have not done my duty as a North American
I have not been performing to my peak level of functioning
Everyone else seems so content
Seems
But let’s pick apart their
Seams
Their threads
On the internet that tell their tale
Forget happiness
It’s an illusion
Patched together
In movie magic illuminated scene pops
And Wite-Out smiles
It’s not the real world
I think: I can have that
I can possess happiness
Like a pet newt
Hold it close
And suffocate it in my clammy-handed ferocity
My grasping hand needs one thing
One thing only
Happy
The books
How to Be happy
Happiness 101
Be happy in 30 days
Be hip hop happening happy in a blink of an eye
A wiggle of a bottom
Put a pencil between my teeth
So I smile
Trick my body
My mind into thinking I am happy with false inputs
God, I am sick of the word happy
Because it zeroes in on one thing
My failure to be it
Always
Perpetually
Without break, like a worker without rights
Slaving under the Big Boss
The Big Happy
I’d rather be comrades with joy
Not elation
Not ecstatic
But joie de vivre
Joy is conceivable
Think not as emotion
But as being
It is simply to enjoy
Not as: wow, this is the best thing ever
But as: I can appreciate even this anger
Even this depression
Joy sees the squirming black legs of despair
And flips them over
Into a red ladybug
And fear has nothing to squawk at anymore
Joy does not bully like the assembly line of happiness
Into the conformity of good and only good
Feelings
All the time
Every time, and reject any defects
Any cracks in my smile
Joy recognizes the beauty
In contrast
The red against the black
The blue following the yellow
The beauty of things morphing into other things
There is room for change in joy
But happiness is rigid
Like a popsicle stick
Sticky with the juice of desire
It snaps under pressure
Splintering when the neon orange sweetness is gone
In Joy there is no fix
Each moment appears Whole
and leaves Whole
An egg waiting to hatch
Bring forth life
Responding to the warmth of your heart
Do I throw away the egg, saying:
No, I wanted a bird?
A bird of paradise
And not this round brown thing
Do I miss out on the big picture
Because I am in pursuit of perfection?
Big overblown happiness
A bag full of wind
Or do I choose joy?
In all moments
Upswing
Downswing
Upriver
Downriver
On a train
On a plane
eating green eggs and ham
I am
In merely one possibility of the spectrum
One band of the rainbow
Scintillating constantly
Red, yellow, violet
I accept
I choose joy.
***
Alice Dolphin is a human being grappling with the intense fear and anxiety that comes from growing up as a human doing. Poetry and art bring relief into her life, as do drinking in nature and bathing in the sun. She intends to one day live in a cottage by the sea, devoting herself fully to her art and laughing every day. You can discover more of her writing and art on her website.
***
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