New Poem-Happiness

Happiness

By: Leah A. (Blog Admin)

A dull ache throbs in the back of my skull

As I gaze at a sunrise. The drowsy prairie

glows in hues of rose and violet.

Absentmindedly, I massage my aching skull,

And I smile.

How should I measure my happiness?

Should I measure it in the number

Of throbs that shoot in my head per minute,

Or the paltry number of days when I do not have pain?

Should I measure it according to items scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper--

A list, which I made years ago, of the things my migraines forbid me to do?

Or, should I measure it in the number

Of tears that have slid down my cheeks

Or the number of weeks the same migraine has bitten into my brain?

Perhaps.

But I would rather measure my happiness in the laughs that escaped me

When my friends and I talked for hours, until the sunlight

Faded into dusk.

I would rather measure it

In the number of robins flitting through trees,

In the feel of my fingers stroking the ivory keys of a piano,

In home cooked chicken and the hugs my parents have given me.

My head pulses with pain again,

And a gust of wind rearranges the clouds,

which glow with golden light.

I grin. I’d rather measure happiness in sunrises.