Elation

Elation

What are you

How can you be so elusive

Whole days come and go

Without you

Filling the space

Between each breath.

Expectation is bitter sweet.

The flutter in the chest,

That can pound

The heart up

Into the mouth,

A welcome diversion,

When it appears with a promise

Of good things to follow.

It is heralded

As the flag bearer

Of excitement

And begs to be cherished,

As it too

Is a fickle mistress

When its needs go unfulfilled.

Or the hope

It carries is dashed

By chance and tribulation.

So goes elation,

Leaving before it arrives

Replaced by a confusion

Of feelings that seem

So alike,

But are considered so differently,

When the yawning

Gap now left,

A hollowed void,

Silence a darkened pool,

As anxiety bullies the fool,

Into wearing

The muddied mantle of emotion.

To hell with life and vigour

We are lethargic, deflated.

The flutter once held dear

Now churns,

And in its turn a crushing weight.

Every breath drawn

A ragged wheeze,

The vibrance

Of the whole hearted,

Gone.

Elation confiscated

With little sign of its demise

Other than its loss.

And the time

Left on our hands

To sit and think about it.