I met a man named Happiness.
He is volatile both in mood and form.
Slinking down my eaves,
he passes through the panes,
and leaves before the dew.
My sink collects remnants of him.
I stand and face my reflection,
watch him drip down my chin.
I thought he was completely washed away that time
until, at my last line of eyeliner application,
he spooked me in the mirror;
the pencil stain smeared across my skin.
Again, I eat him for breakfast.
A few bites in, he is
tasteless on my tongue.
Then in my car, he sneaks through the vent,
an odorless vapor, and blares through the radio.
I try to outsmart him with a disc;
he scratches through the silver lining, in spite,
making it unreadable.
Last week, he resembled a stray cat
shivering sick to get inside,
consuming the last bit of sustenance
in my barren kitchen.
A month ago, his intrusion was
a black coffee stain,
spilled blisters across my legs.
At my feet he saturated white plush carpet;
I heard his laughter gurgle through the bubbles
at my missed opportunity,
sitting soaked in my momentous meeting.
Today, he is especially irksome,
repeating back to me in a sing-song voice
the mockeries he has made of me,
tied with run-on sentences, spewing like a deluge.
He never yields to my obvious exasperation,
evaporating when I unleash on his intangible states.
A man I once pursued inexhaustibly, callously pursues me.
Tomorrow, I will meet Happiness with a scowl painted on,
like a porcelain doll, I will shatter in his presence.
Impermanence emanates steam
from the hard surface he resembles,
catching me on descent; concrete greets glass.
