I Used To Be Happy

Or how I came to hate my life.

I think the devil stole my joy.

(Don’t get ahead of yourself, the Satan you know is an innocent bystander here.)

Not all at once, no. That would have given the thief away.

One piece of peace at a time, quietly lost in loud anger and self-loathing, drowned in my bottomless pools of regret.

(The devil is a shape-shifter.)

Sometimes, the devil is me. The other me:

Chief saboteur of my own comfort, terminator of my winning streaks, destroyer of the walls that keep out the madness.

(I deserve a medal.)

Never caught off-guard, never open, always brutally honest with myself until I wasn’t.

(I believed a lie, mine.)

I’ve never been ready to share, never was built for it in the intimate way that makes airheads dreamy and convinces the wise that foolishness should be courted with flowers.

I’ve always been better alone, stunning in my loneliness, profound in isolation.

The strength in numbers is an addition or a multiplication. Try finding strength in a sum of weaknesses.

(I thought I knew better. I did not.)

Yielding is a crime and giving in an offence.

I stand apart together, standing inside from the outside looking in at the deception that I am present.

The carefully constructed facade of participation in the games, the pursuit of raucous laughter as empty as the mind-spaces in which it echoes.

(I can fake it with the best of you.)

Realness is murder: the real me is a joy-killer, the cold water on your fire, the early end of the party, the ghost at the sleepover.

I am the one who never dances, who never mingles, who mutters the greetings. But you may never know.

On days when the chameleon is well, you can never know.

The beast was unwell the day the devil came.

(Vulnerability is a strength only when you know how much to reveal. Every other time, it will be your downfall. Don’t preach stupidity.)

I used to be happy till I got sappy, till I forgot how to take and not look back, till I started leaving doors (I had sworn to keep locked) ajar.

(Damn softness, damn the need for warmth and human company.)

People make you see the spaces in your life that supposedly need filling.

(Mirage-spaces, they don’t exist. You’re complete by yourself.)

People make you feel.

People are trouble. Don't get into them.

Hollow warnings too late. Or right on time, but listening is an uncommon virtue.

Don’t stand at the edge of a beautiful life, the pull is irresistible.

Don’t stand under an open window, entrapment likes to look down and whisper (and you cannot say no to that bloody witch).

Don’t get careless.

Don’t get restless. A mundane life is an underappreciated comfort.

Take advice from a man in recovery, I know what I'm trying to save you from.

(When you fall, the push doesn’t register till you’re in pieces.)

I used to be happy.

Then I broke.

I think the devil gave out my joy.

(And left me with shards.)

I am going to take it back.