Fear Poem by Shafat Ullah Jan MorningStar

I am afraid of happiness.
I don't know why,
but happiness has never been a shelter for me—
it has always been a warning.
Whenever I dared to smile,
life reminded me
that every smile is temporary.
The moment my heart whispered,
'Perhaps now everything will be alright, '
a storm of sorrow would rise from somewhere far away
and carry me with it.
I want to fly…
but that storm lifts me high into the sky
only to throw me into an ocean
where the waves are made of memories,
and with every wave
an old pain awakens again.
I try to find my way out,
but the path disappears into fog.
Time feels as if it has stopped,
and life becomes nothing more
than the act of breathing.
Those memories keep saying:
'We warned you before—
never trust happiness.'
Slowly, I stopped being happy.
I never learned how to laugh,
only how to smile…
and that too for others.
Because I knew
that if I ever felt true happiness,
some sorrow would surely come
asking for the way to it.
Now, whenever happiness knocks on my door,
I grow uneasy.
I ask myself,
'What sorrow is hiding behind it? '
Most of the time, the answer is silence…
and silence is the most terrifying answer of all.
Perhaps this is what fear truly is—
the fear of the sorrow
that follows happiness.
And so I live within this fear,
I breathe within this fear.
Because I have learned one thing:
when happiness grows too deep,
then after it,
the arrival of sorrow
is almost certain.

— Shafat