! Happiness!  You fickle emotion, wretched emotion

grinning mask covering seething faces

deceiving innocent people, falsifying places

you raise hopes only to be dashed again, you elusive emotion

you have led men in search of you to their graves

the rich, discontent without you; the poor thinks you he craves

you taunt and dangle from their grasp

like a coy mistress whose favors she clasp

like a swing, you take them high and low

you end in the low and leave pain in your wake

in the words of Shakespeare, the world is your stage

we age but our wisdom never change

crimes and abomination are committed in your name

we search for happiness but humanity we forsake

a trail of blood behind, fresh tears in sorrow’s lake

maybe we are forever doomed to search for you

or maybe we will begin to search for something new

- Charis