The Best and Worst Emotions
By John Herlihy

Oftentimes, we choose to hide our emotions,
Deep currents drawn from fathomless oceans.
A broad range of emotions run silent and deep,
Upon the ground of our soul protection to seek.
We drift down endlessly into the turgid waters,
With desires in our wake as orphaned daughters.
Our emotions draw their forces from human fate,
The ups and downs, ins and outs, we most relate.
If we had no human emotions, what could we say,
Very little left behind of our humanity to convey.

Love, for example, expresses our utmost desire;
Our minds are focused as our hearts are on fire.
Without love we only exist in life as empty shells;
Brief moments of mirth captured as magic spells.
The floodgates are released from oceanic depths;
Seconds of our day measured in sincere breaths.
I will love you, I think to myself, to my dying day;
Words express a passion with nothing left to say.
Hearts so intertwined in tribute to feeling as one;
Love captures a quality of forever, never undone.

Hate, on the other hand, a mostly turgid desire;
With love left aside, this be another kind of fire.
Without hate’s gravity, we float like a sea shell;
Brief moments of joy captured as a magic spell.
But hate has brimstone to smother in its weight,
Searing our hearts, negative emotions to create.
We justify our hatred in a series of sharp points,
To inspire resentment that only hatred anoints.
Inside hatred, we don’t know how we got there,
To wither in shadow, but thrive in its own glare.

Emotions a cornucopia of expectation and dread,
A broad range of feelings on which our hearts fed.
The best of emotions may lift us up feeling sublime,
The worst of our emotions casting us into the slime.
Is there anyone out there who would give them up,
Surrender our humanity to become a mongrel pup?
Some emotions pin to our hearts a badge of courage;
Other emotions only serve our hopes to discourage.
Whether love/hate, joy/sorrow, satisfaction/regret;
Our emotions say who we are, may we never forget.