Happier.In this World.

I would have been happier…
In a different world…we would have all been happier…
Happier...not having to be ourselves all our defended lives…
Happier…to simply not be, maybe?

I saw a woman in rags today.
No she wasn’t a beggar.
I saw her as the day was inward bound…
Into the twilight suspension of mildew and pollution…
Wearing a kurta so dirty the color underneath had surrendered
To that color of slow submission, the color of comatose dreams-grey.
But she wasn’t a beggar…
She heaved onto her shoulders two bulging bags,
Her precious possessions…
Excluding her from the indignity of begging…
I couldn’t read her expression as I ran past, in my insignificant but frigid hurry…
In this world it should be…numbness to regression…
In the other, it is the desperation to live…
And that felt, though quaint in this world…but closer to the truth about her.
I wondered why she hadn’t committed suicide. Yet.

Yes, I would have been happier dead if I was her.

I would have been happier…
If I didn’t hesitate that one delaying minute in reaching out my hand for you,
I would have been happier…
If I could answer those questions of your five-year old eyes…
I would have been happier…
If I could make the wind blow the hair back from your face…
I would have been happier…
If I had a conscience loud enough to refrain me from breaching your trust…
I would have been happier…
If I remember at the rightful moment, you never mean the hurtful things you said…
I would have been happier…
If I didn’t have to satiate my narcissi by forgetting my past…
I would have been happier…
If you didn’t have to stand at the tilted edge of the pavement looking like a beggar…
I would have been in a different world…
In a different life…

If only I could accept this the way you did,
I would have been happier.