Happiness Ruined Everything

"One of the strange joys of being in love with someone is how happiness ruined everything. No more courting the dark. I've always worn my own darkness and haven't tried-I hope I haven't tried-pretending that it doesn't exist. It feels odd to identify an experience because of how happy it made me feel. Except, of course, when it comes to love. But even then, even at love, I'm wary when its happiness comes skipping along into the writing. I've never understood the impulse to write out of happiness. I'm a happy person and a funny person, but I'm not a happy writer or a funny writer. I don't believe that a piece of writing has to be sad, but it does-at least for me-have to insist on acknowledging a shadow. It has to face something that a good cop would call evidence."Some of these essays appeared, at times in different form, in the following publications: SPIN, Poetry, Slice, Poets & Writers, Ploughshares Blog, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, & FENCE.