Without warning, it rushes forth
from the depths of your soul. A flicker
like candlelight, burns brighter,
fed by a hurricane, it consumes.
A power unmatched on earth or in heaven,
it overwhelms every sense.
You cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot think,
until these flames of desperate desire are quenched.
Who can say what love is? Where from?
bringing a joy unexpected, undeserved.
Man can know no greater pleasure.
But alas, with the blink of an eye it is gone,
and when it goes it leaves a husk
where once was flesh and bone and blood.
Horrible, cursed, despised thing, love.
Black and angry, it mutilates.
Intangible, invisible, yet able to inflict
a pain far worse than death, than life.
You cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot think,
cannot bear to lift your weary head.
Man can know no greater sorrow.
And, who shall we thank for this sweet marriage,
elation to misery, ecstasy to agony,
this bastard child of emotional discord,
this cruel, cruel joke called love?
God or Devil?
Both, I suspect.