PaperHurricanesAndPlanes

Human Emotions

I

Human emotions are like shape-shifting glass.
All it takes is a plastic ping-pong ball
To shatter it all.
With sunlight-speckled glasses I cast a glance
At the fragile glass coffee table shaped like a brain.
Here’s to love and pain and anger and pleasure.
Blowtorches burning glass; insults shattering conscience.
That is a reason why someone will take up the gun.
At another of endless glassy brains, I look into the amygdala.
With skepticism that is cynical yet true
My struggles of conjecture inject uncertainty into my veins.

And my sledgehammer comes down
Suddenly it is raining inside;
Hailing glass.

II

These feelings are fleeting, some soft, some intense.
But they flee, like a peregrine falcon
That goes hacking back into the wild.
Only to end up in the captivity of cathedral walls.
Like us; ending up as captives of our emotions
Our visceral drives; our evil tendencies.
Bullets killing birds; insults shattering self-worth.
That is a reason why someone will take up the gun.
I look at the birds falling from grace, as everything often does.
I don’t want to fly with faulty wings anymore, on emotionally toxic air.
A residue reminiscent of a former perfection.

And that beautiful dark bird
Flies into a wall
Smashing brains.

III

Torturous speculation drives me
To bang my head against a brick wall
Like an autistic child.
Struggling with conjecture
Trying to kill myself with thoughts
I clench my fists and I hope
I’ll wake up and be a better person.
I struggle with my own chemical imperfections
And my desires for a natural ego-inflating high.
It seems humans’ only organized idea of thought
Is “Get happy, anyway you can.”

And the gun hammer comes down
Suddenly it is raining inside;
Showering brains.

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