was it true?

So tell me, was it true, after all, that happiness was real only when it was shared? People liked to say that two hearts could hold more than one alone, that the more eyes that watched, the more images would remain, filling our rooms, decorating the walls of this fragile temple made of flesh. And maybe it was true. Maybe all those hands intertwined really did make our bodies steadier, a single force instead of two separate ones. You would remember, I knew, the yellow leaves that fell slowly to the ground, brushing against our heads as they went. And I would remember the heron, hunting, resting upon that murky, still water.

But please, tell me, was it true that happiness only existed when it was shared? Was what I felt a lie, or something imagined, something passing, something that belonged only to the idea of happiness and not to its reality? Because, you see, I felt it. I remembered the heron, the yellow leaves, the parrots that kissed in the trees, the geese bathing in the light of sunset. Inside me, there was room for all of it, and everything sat comfortably there, without needing to divide itself to reach another heart. Sometimes, I thought, it was enough to keep quietly what my eyes had seen, to hold it in secret and let it live there, undisturbed.