Happy Pills

I stopped taking the happy pills.
All that happiness was making me superficial,
Too full of contentment to empathize
With the suffering of friends,
Of the world.

I needed them desperately once,
When I’d fallen too far,
Lost in the darkening forest,
No way out
Until the happy pills lit a small candle.

The flickering flame grew brighter
And the darkness fell away,
The fear slowly evaporating
Like dew on daisies in the warming sun
Of an early summer morning.

We are all wounded by this world.

Normal is an idea in wet cement.

My thoughts dare not contain too much truth now.
I dare not feel all that I know
Lest I relapse,
Compelled to ingest the happy pills once again,
Returned to the gated community of unearned serenity.


~ Russ Allison Loar
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