Pain is Forever
Marc Mosko, 1996

Happiness is fleeting.
Pain is forever.

Those moments, special times, when we are joyous
are few and far between.
We may fondly remember those times, those
speckles of color on our mottled canvas.
We may plan future convivialities,
distant Sirens.

These are punctuations.
They do not persist.

Surrounding those infinitesimal lapses of reality,
there lies a polyphony of doleful cacophonies.
We are creatures of sorrow and misfortune.
We struggle to contrive circuitous plans.
We strive for the complex, for confusion.
Simplicity is foreign among us.

Happiness is fleeting.

Joyous events happen and fade.
They drift from memory.
We may retell them with conviction,
But not with the emotion that accompanies stories of tragedy.

Pain is forever.