Blinded by love! Blinded by rage! Flushed in embarrassment or paralyzed by fear! The more raw the feelings, it seem the more our body gives evidence. Science can explain the chemical to the physical, but what of the emotional? We’ve all passed through the tunnel of overwhelming emotions. That constricting intensity eventually gives way to the light, to reason, to the unclenching fists and the slowing of the pulse. However, we can’t think our way out of this tunnel. Often, only time and space can lessen their governance over our body.

These powerful emotions feed on contact, on circumstance and even on memory. At times, these deep experiences come together like jigsaw pieces of smaller feelings. At other times, they’re immediate reactions: a snap return to the base.

Over centuries, poets wrapped up these extreme feelings into a fictitious symbol: the heart. It’s circulating duties seem well matched for regulating emotions. As a muscle, we suffer physiologically when it fails to pump properly. As a mascot, we’re overcome by basic instincts when it fails to moderate sentiments.

This piece does not intend to conclude with solutions. Like many, I search for the right way to articulate how our rational, our very bodily functions are kidnapped by the heart. Traditionally, the rush of intense emotions leaves me speechless so perhaps this search is in vain.

I KEEP MY EYE ON YOU WILMONT
You bounce around my instincts and pop up as if by chance. Never an empty seat with you, insisting each moment we dance.
I gulp down pride to win your hand; hungry, but afraid of showing. You never starve for attention, feeding on any wind blowing.
This blue sky, too small to keep you steady, too weak to keep you down.  Your random, impish grin shakes me up and loosens my frown.
You tickle. I shiver. You amble. I chase, reaching out to be squeezed. Laughing, crying, moping, singing, you’re not a whim, but a life long tease.
We tumble awkward elbow over ankle, sunshine blinding all the way. I keep my eye on you Wilmont, as if I have a say.


Brian Toner      October 2020