Len Webster's 'Happiness' Poem by Len Webster

This poem is about a man
Who always had a reason
For being unhappy.

He never had the money,
Never had the time,
Was always thinking of
Being somewhere else,
Said he lived from day to day
But really lived in his mind
For the day when
He would be happy.

The happiest times were the times
He spent thinking about
When he'd be happy
And all his troubles
Just memories
To keep him awake at night.

So, being happy, he'd be unhappy
Thinking of the past
And all the struggle
To get to this point in his life
Where he was happy
And feeling good with himself
For being there
But just a bit guilty
Because being happy meant
Remembering the people he'd known
Who weren't happy
And were still filling in their lottey tickets
Hoping for a breakthrough in their lives.

Being happy, he'd be able to teach the world
How being unhappy had become a way of life
You were trapped into
And there were always reasons
Why you should be unhappy
Like not having the things
Everyone said you had to have
To lead a happy life.

And one day you'd be dead
And not know if you were happy or not
Or if the world had ended yet
And if it hadn't how much suffering
Must still be going on -
And did it matter?
Because the only way he thought
He could be happy
Was by being unhappy.

Or by not being at all -
Which scared him so much
He knew he could never be happy
Ever