Happiness

He felt responsible for her happiness,
he said, as if he believed that it was his
job to make someone else happy just
by doing things, or being something than
other himself,

as if she had a right to
demand that he serve her in this way,
and that he, God-like, could somehow
put to rights everything that was wrong,
or at least, everything that she deemed
to be wrong, no matter how right it might
appear to him and to others looking on,
whenever and however it appeared; as if,
whatever life brought which she did
not like, could be turned around by him,
must be turned around by him, transformed,
set in accordance with her needs and desires,
and forever tuned

to prevent the slightest
discord, or upset, or lack of happiness to
enter into her being, or her life, or, God
forbid, her consciousness, which was, no
doubt, still there, somewhere; clever really,
for that meant, from the moment that he
accepted the impossible task, that everything,
would always be his fault and the future held
eternal promise, like Sisyphus rolling his stone,
uphill every night, only to have it roll back
down again by morning,

the goal would never
be achieved, and the elusive pursuit of her
happiness, would keep him busy to the end
of his days and long past, the end of his integrity,
his independence, his sanity and his truth.

NB: He and She and her and him can of course be swapped. This is not particular to either sex but exists in both in some relationships.