Happiness is an Inside Job: A Poetic Exploration Across Perspectives #WriteAPageADay #825

Happiness is an Inside Job

(Phase I: The Echo Within)

I wake up,
not from sleep, but from silence—
a noise so loud it swallows me whole.
They said happiness is inside,
but where?
I peel myself apart, layer by layer,
ribcage creaking,
lungs spilling forgotten laughter,
a childhood memory folded into a tight origami crane.
I unfold it—
paper-thin joy, crinkled, creased,
torn at the edges but still decipherable.

I chase my pulse through veins like tunnels,
fingertips grazing walls of flesh and thought.
Where is it hiding?
In my marrow, in my breath,
in the pause between inhale and exhale?
I taste it, fleeting—
like rain evaporating before it touches the ground.
Is this it?
The job description of happiness?
To arrive, only to vanish?

(Phase II: You, The Architect)

You stand at the edge of yourself,
toes curling over the precipice of your own being.
What do you see?
A body—a blueprint of scars and stories,
a heart—a clenched fist refusing to let go,
a mind—a room filled with unanswered questions.

You ask the world where happiness resides.
It hands you mirrors.
You break them.
Seven years of bad luck, they say.
But what is time to you?
You, who have been rebuilding since before you were broken.

You think it’s outside.
A city skyline blinking neon promises.
A lover whispering the words you never knew you needed.
A bank balance tipping toward infinite.
But when you open your hands,
what remains?

You were searching for keys to a door
that was never locked.
You were waiting for a letter
you had already written.

(Phase III: The Observer’s Lens)

She walks through the market of emotions,
picking happiness up like a fruit,
inspecting its ripeness, its weight in her palm.
She holds it to the sun,
lets the light filter through its translucent skin.
It looks perfect.

But happiness does not sit in baskets,
does not rot or over-ripen.
It is neither transaction nor trophy.
It is the breath she forgets to count,
the hum between verses of an unwritten song,
the space between footfalls on an endless road.

He watches her,
this stranger who has not yet met herself.
He sees the way she measures joy in objects,
in moments stolen rather than owned.
He does not tell her—
happiness cannot be hoarded,
cannot be chased like a runaway balloon.
It is not running.
It never was.

(Phase IV: The Collapsing – Inside Out, Outside In)

We sit at the intersection of all selves,
first person, second person, third—
a kaleidoscope of identities bleeding into one.

You are the seeker, the sought, the found.
She is the question, the answer, the silence between them.
I am the writer, the reader, the ink that refuses to dry.

Happiness is not a destination,
not a locked room or an abandoned house.
It is the foundation beneath our feet,
the walls we build inside ourselves,
the light spilling through the cracks.

It is not a job.
It is not a task.
It is the worker and the work,
the architect and the blueprint,
the unfinished poem humming in the bones of us all.

(Phase V: The Shattered Clock – Time as an Illusion)

Tick.
You think happiness comes after.
After the degree, the promotion, the right house, the right hands to hold.
But happiness does not wait for time to permit it.
It does not arrive on cue, wearing a tailored suit of perfect conditions.

Tock.
She keeps saying, I’ll be happy when…
She does not know happiness is impatient,
that it sits now, waiting, in the quiet corners of her existence.
She drinks coffee alone, staring out of windows,
not realizing the sun that warms her skin is the answer she is looking for.

Tick.
He spends years saving for a future where happiness will be abundant.
He does not see—happiness is not stored in bank vaults,
it does not accrue interest,
it does not compound in investments of delay.

Tock.
I measure joy in increments of presence.
Not in the days that pass, but in the moments that stretch.
When the clock shatters, happiness remains.

(Phase VI: The Hollow Hand – Letting Go to Hold More)

Close your fists.
Tight.
What do you hold?
Nothing but air and aching palms.

Happiness does not belong to the clenched hand.
It is in the letting go—
of expectation, of comparison, of waiting.
Happiness is the open hand,
the one that catches raindrops and sunlight without trapping them.
The one that waves hello,
the one that brushes against another and feels warmth,
the one that releases,
because happiness is not owned, only experienced.

(Phase VII: The Homecoming – Circles, Not Lines)

It ends where it begins—
inside.
The outside world is a mirage,
a flickering projection of moving targets.

But here—
within the ribs, beneath the skin, behind the eyes,
there is a door that never needed unlocking.
There is a light that never needed kindling.

Happiness was always home,
waiting for you to return.

#Happiness #InnerPeace #Poetry #Mindfulness #SelfDiscovery #EmotionalWellness #Perspective #PersonalGrowth #Philosophy