joyless happiness

words by clement tan 2004

it's so nice to be happy
you'd be surprised it's so easy to be content
in the simple mundane things
like lying on the pastures letting the sun bake our fair skin
or the simple luxury of being able to sleep in on a cool saturday morning.

if only we allowed ourselves that luxury
and stop wanting and wanting and wanting
the unattainable, the impossible, the mores of society.
if only we know what's good for us.

back then when joy, content and happiness
are inseparably similar
like how the Holy Trinity is.
a smile transcends all understanding --
it's face value.

but to be joyfully happy
the same yet different
joy that comes from within
genuine, fleeting -- oh so precious
in the concrete jungle of the vaulting selfish ambition
it seems quite an anomoly
that people can be gay but not happy.

temporal happiness
in pursuits oh so fleeting
mere satisfying the soul at that moment
to leave regrets that pinge the soul of its conscience.
over time, a deluge of it
numbs and then finite rationalising steps in --
why fight it when we can join and make and be at peace with ourselves.
why try so hard to believe?

that thing call Escape.
oh precious denial!
find new justifications to break barriers.
run to new unchartered territories.
oh mighty self!

sometimes physical sickness that prevents
is really a sign that one shouldn't.
this but some way
that someone will bring you to your knees with
if only you'll let the Maker do His thing.