The boy didn't know
if he was ever happy
the way others were.
He was happy
a lot of the time,
these days,
but
he wasn't sure it was the sort of happiness
that other people felt.

He had always been different,
and his experiments with
counseling,
medication,
yoga,
exercise regiments,
diets,
religion,
alcohol,
love,
work,
and ambition
always ended with the same dissatisfying result.

He could not exceed
the bounds and bonds of somber, solemn, solitude
for long.
He always drifted back
to the shores of sadness and slowness of mind.
He had a soul like a nervous bird
and it never stayed
in one emotion
for long.

Generally, it flew back to the nest
it had made
up high in the boughs
of quiet, calm, hopeless sadness.