Feelings

When Keats spoke of the endless fountain
Of immortal drink, pouring from heaven
The venerable poet did misjudge the mountain
Of emotions that does not let me sleep till 4 hours past 11

The human mind’s enigmatic machinations
About its existence and mine
Impose on me sudden and uncertain limitations
Because five minutes ago, I was fine

My mind is the perfect accountant
It keeps track of every loss
Yet it seems to let slip the happiness and enjoyment
Attributed (this behaviour) to the turbulence of a substandard boss

I feel I must reference some biblical proportions
To accurately depict the scale of this malady
However, no figure from these epics can address my consternations
As time goes from steady drumbeat to a sickeningly fast rhapsody

Why must nature’s most powerful machine
Fall prey to these small reactions
Strong enough to set the scene
And alter every interaction?

Sadness, the taloned bird of prey
From within it consumes
Regardless of how much I beg or how much I plead
Inside me it creates a vacuum

Anxiety, the perennially runny nose
A rather unnecessary roadblock
We watch our mind beat itself up because it knows
Something is likely to make the score drop

Happiness is like water, though
Hard to grasp; satisfaction of a different breed
Those who have swimming pools of it will never know just how much of it
The ones holding out a glass really need

These feelings are like a circle
With no beginning and no end
We marvel in the absurdity of their sudden existence
And in this lifetimes are spent

A feeling is but a neurochemical process
With an unfortunately strong grip
Uninhibited, like a dissatisfied spirit it will possess
But being stable is the unfortunate crackle of the whip

Perhaps we are machines;
Each of us uniformly random
These feelings must be a flaw in our code
Because we clearly aren’t equipped to withstand them

What else would explain the degree
To which our lives change because of them
I would rather not feel anything
Than be an overfed caterpillar on this leafy stem.