Missing Happiness

It is a strange thing to feel happy

Something beyond the high of a drug

A different planet than the mirth of a drunk

Immeasurable like the idea of a god 

Leaving you to sit there and nod

While the waves barely tickle your toes

You miss happiness

Not entirely but almost unlike missing a person

Like falling in love with the shadow of someone 

You never really miss being happy, just the idea of it

Like a joke heard more than once becomes less funny on each retelling

You're not sure if happiness is just not as happy as it used to be 

Or is it just me, you ask 

Part of you wants to turn around and run back

Back to where it was always happy 

Back to when sadness was just an empty pack of cigarettes

And happiness was finding that one last smoke

Back when sadness was not knowing what to eat 

And happiness was good old biryani 

And so you miss happiness 

An idea of feeling that poets like me fail to describe 

Even if you bottle it, you wouldn't like it

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015