Is happiness available for all or reserved for the privileged few? Regardless, I discovered mine on an early summer morning.

Joy found me sitting on the crisp lawn. Sunflowers patterned the girl's dress, her grip firm as she helped me up off the ground.

I learned that her favorite color was yellow and that she preferred green apples over red. We passed notes in class when the teachers turned their backs and talked on the phone late at night.

We lay in the dewy grass, Joy’s smile as bright as the moon perched above. I drank her in and became intoxicated on nothing else that night.

We fought, we loved, we laughed, and we cried. Though my skin had grown wrinkled, the world was vivid with Joy by my side.

Eventually, Joy passed, and I became bitter. Cloudy days stretched out in agony, and my thoughts were occupied with her and the sole desire to follow her into the next life. I closed my eyes, the sound of a distant lawnmower drowning out all other senses.

She was brilliant, she was beautiful, she was Joy, and she lived a life full of Sorrow.