I’m Not Happy, the Therapy Client Says
By Suzanne O’Connell
“I’m not happy,” the therapy client says.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
She tells of a broken marriage,
a husband, who when he does come home,
is drunk and abusive.
“He tells me I’m ugly,” she says,
“I’m afraid all the time.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine how
you could find happiness
in such an unhappy situation,” I say.
She looks surprised. Disappointed.
“I thought you would have suggestions,” she says.
“Imagine you were in the midst of war,” I say,
“would you expect yourself to be filled with joy?”
Nowadays, gurus tell us to find happiness in life.
They never say how.
I feel like a failure because I can’t.
Every day there are new cruelties,
more chaos, more things that threaten.
I try to focus on the small things.
I notice the smell of a pink rose,
I taste the chocolate gelato,
I talk to someone I love.
But if we survive this,
I want the future to know
that we have survived a war,
a struggle in the darkness,
a time when happiness was hard to find.
Suzanne O’Connell’s work can be found in Poet Lore, North American Review, Drunk Monkeys, Paterson Literary Review, Chiron Review, Beach Chair Press, and Atlanta Review among others. Suzanne was a finalist in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, 2024. Her two poetry collections, A Prayer for Torn Stockings and What Luck, were published by Garden Oak Press. Her website is suzanneoconnell-poet.net.
Photo by Abraham Puthoor via a Creative Commons license.
A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.