Party!

I wasn’t happy that day.
But you wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t let you know.
I made sure you wouldn’t know. Because you were happy.
If you wrote this poem, you would say:
“I was happy. But you weren’t happy.”
But this is my poem. This is my space. This is my unhappiness spilling into words you wouldn’t know, telling a story you wouldn’t know.
I wasn’t happy.
As happiness spread in front of me, joy evolved around me, fun engulfed me,
I wasn’t happy. All the sadness of the world reminded me how happiness is only for a few.
All the laughter is for a few, and more of my sisters and brothers are more and more unhappy, all this is a joke, the world is a pretence of togetherness.
We are fragmented, we are silenced.
We are numbed.
I am numbed into silence as I carry along the pretence of being happy while I cry, and my remembering to cry gives me hints of hope.
All the colours and the fun remind me that I am still crying, that I can’t just laugh my way through this madness of pretentious cowshit.
But no one would know.
I made sure no one would notice
that
in the sorrow I found a meaning for life that I was starting to lose slowly.
For in pain and sorrow lies our willingness to empathise,
our willingness to outrage,
our urge to fight against hate and pretence and sorrow that engulfs humankind today.
It’s unhappiness that reminds us that happiness cannot just be pretended about,
we must fight for happiness.
Now,
I am content that I wasn’t happy that day.
It has given me hope.
I shouldn’t be too content.
I must enrage at the injustice in the world,
one injustice at a time.
Our collective rage will party some day!