𝑨 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝑯𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝑰’𝒍𝒍 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒆

They told me to write about the bright side

as if I’ve ever stood on it.

As if sunlight would know my name if it passed me on the street.
I don’t remember happiness.
Not like a forgotten birthday, but like a language I was never taught—
some myth people believe in because the alternative is too cruel.

I’ve been alive so long I can’t tell if I’m breathing or just forgetting to die.
Some days I don't want to jump.
I just want to vanish—without the mess, without the note.

They tell me happiness is real.
Like gravity, or God.
But I think it's just a story people tell themselves
so the ceiling fan doesn’t start to look like a way out.

Still, if I ever felt it, even for a second, it was before memory began.

I think of my mother, holding me right after I was born.
Before shame found me, before mirrors made me flinch,
before love became a negotiation.

I was cradled, stitched into her arms like I belonged.
No one expected me to smile.
No one told me to be strong.
I just existed,
and someone held me like that was enough.

Maybe that was happiness.
Not joy—just the absence of pain, the silence of need,
a moment without fear biting through it.