Serotonine

Is this what it is like to be happy?

You find yourself asking the question into the peaceful space after a run, into the peaceful space of budding leaves on the trees outside my window, into the peaceful space of a soul at ease. Do people just live like this? It seems impossible. 

And yet, at the very bottom of the well from which you scoop there is the sense that you, too, have lived like this. At the very ends of your muscle memory sits the tiniest tingle that you know these steps, that you remember what it is to get out of bed, do the things that you intended, walk back straight, eyes clear, believe in tomorrow, what it is to look at the next 40 years and not think how am I supposed to endure all of that?

You take cautious steps into the street, feel Avenue B stretch its limbs into the late spring, smell lilacs from the 6B garden on the breeze, you count the light days like you used to count twenty-dollar bills in your sock drawer, let your lungs expand in security, a new book creates itself under your broken wings, the writing bar is mellow on Mondays, there was a time when you thought how am I supposed to endure all of that?

but that time is not today. 

Today I just live like this
and save it in the sock drawer.