a happiness checklist

did you eat vegetables

sleep on a good mattress

remind yourself on nights like this

that she is not coming back

did you move to music you don’t know

go to the beach three times in the summer

sit under hungry waves where it is most dangerous

then swim above where others have not

did you wear a helmet while biking

did you avoid the path less travelled

by turning around

to see if people missed the beauty of the forest

did you garden

did you flirt in another language you’re only just learning

did you find someone else

and forget that they are not like those already gone

did you floss

did you sleep in while snoring on that mattress

did you get tired

dead tired

more tired than you think you’ll ever be

by doing something like whispering to the endless night

to sing again

did you listen to the distant dancing

did you listen to the silence afterwards

when people slip back into rooms

already emptying of honest laughter

like her’s

did you learn a magic trick

did you see how fast you run the one hundred metre sprint

did you learn to lick your elbow

did you throw out that mattress after it has been imprinted

with love and love again

did you make friends with people who hold you like light

and who understand how incomprehensible that is

and you are

and how you will be together

did you do nothing for a day or two

did you go to theatre whenever you can

did you run off with the rain in toronto

roll down a hamilton hill in clean clothes

kiss under the effiel tower

did you cite less specific examples

did you gargle out terrible poetry that reeks of diesel

did you drive a car to an edge of a cliff where the temptation

to fall off is only matched by the fear of another striking sight

did you joke about yourself to yourself for yourself

did you attempt long complicated sentences that drip of solipsism

and years of existential erudition

did you simplify

reduce

relax

did you appreciate inside references outside

did you ever realize that she did

did you not spend more money than you have saved

did to ensure to be kind on yourself for not understanding

index funds and income taxes

and the rigmarole of adulthood that most don’t comprehend either

did you make certain that the second mattress can fit two comfortably

did you golf

did you admit contradictions like you are war with the idleness of peace

did you allow yourself total violence

moments of cruel terrible things that you will regret

like stabbing your dog to death when you are twelve

or

not finishing dinner five minutes later when you are much older

did you fish

did you try on vegetarianism

did you realize there are no strict boundaries but

only lines drawn by others who wished they could create circles

did you fart loudly in a public place

did you blame it on someone else

did you paint

did you keep little insignificant trinkets from your childhood

did you ever start that novel

did you shift through the things unsaid

did you delete the text messages to her from her with her

did you do her

did you get done by her

did you think you were not doing you without her

 

did you begin to understand you were

did that realization that you would be fine scare you

did you come to terms with what is lost to the lost

but can be found in the culture of another

someone like you

reading this now

maybe on a mattress

breathing in memories of then

happy to have them

done

finished

checked off

 

did you reach the end

and yet

it went on