There are moments when my emotional plane

seems to separate from the delicate flesh encasing my muscle and bone,

much like the inevitable separation of leaf from branch,

yet there is not an audience sighing at this separation,

Thinking it a whimsical and natural occurrence.

This divorce is not autumn to winter,

but warmth to sterility, the loss of a dream.

My feeling thoughts depart from my head,

they evaporate into the sky, gentle kisses

That meander through the clouds until they reach the cheek of Gabriel.

While those feeling thoughts are sweet upon his face,

They represent a lost child, a deceased loved one, a wronged lover,

A bucket that used to be filled.

It is not frigid darkness, but perhaps a cold muted grey.

I am aware of the detachment, each time willing for the plane to be delayed,

Hoping that it is a false start, a practice departure.

There is no pattern, no statistical interpretation that could

define this phenomenon, for I have so dearly tried for an explanation,

As we all so desperately try to do with these sort of things.

Feeling thoughts are not meant to leave, perhaps they can be inflamed,

bothered, befuddled, aroused, danced with, prodded and poked.

But they are not meant to leave—they do not go on holiday, they do not visit family,

They only nestle into the sulci of our brain and glide over the gyri.

Some are said to be without emotional planes,

without feeling thoughts, their brains barren

Of gliders living in their thinking folds—

they have no leaves on their branches, no sprouts in spring.

Their existence terrifies me.

One day, they could be me, and I them.

They always come back, those gliders, just as the sun rises,

Just as the bulbs of tulips open to reveal lovely pink petals.

But each time they are whisked away by the wind,

I begin to drown in the fear that they might never come back,

That the love and hope and joy and sadness and anger

that make me undeniably human will desert me,

leaving only a shriveled half-human,

one that does not care for the loss of my thought feelings,

because I’ve been robbed of the ability to remember,

to miss,

to acknowledge the loss of emotional humanity.