A Field Guide to Emotional Chemistry

© Psychology Today

A Field Guide to Emotional Chemistry

Anger walks in with a clenched jaw.

Disgust follows, perfumed in nope.

They don’t argue - they curate.

Everything gets labeled beneath us.

Contempt is born holding a wine glass it didn’t pay for,

swirling your effort, sniffing for flaws,

spitting out a review that tastes like pennies.

-----

Fear opens the body like a door kicked inward.

Surprise turns on all the lights at once.

Your bones suddenly feel rented.

Awe arrives as architecture - cathedral ribs, vaulted breath - 

a panic attack that learned manners,

asking you to remove your shoes

before stepping on the infinite.

-----

Anticipation taps its watch, already late to tomorrow.

Joy steals the clock, sells it for confetti.

They high-five in the doorway of maybe.

Optimism is a con artist with excellent posture,

pitching sunrise to a room full of night shifts,

handing out brochures that say trust me

in fonts shaped like ladders.

-----

Joy laughs first, loud, unembarrassed.

Trust doesn’t flinch.

They sit close enough to share gravity.

Love is a risky merger with no legal department,

two signatures scribbled on the back of a heartbeat,

a mutual decision to be readable

and therefore ruinable.

-----

Trust lies down, throat visible, a soft target.

Fear inventories exits, names every shadow.

They sign a quiet contract in pencil.

Submission is posture dressed as peace,

a nod that keeps nodding after the sentence ends,

obedience with a pulse,

a yes that checks over its shoulder.

-----

Disgust scrubs until the sink complains.

Sadness fills it back up.

The mirror fogs and refuses to translate.

Remorse keeps receipts in a waterproof envelope,

replays the moment with director’s commentary,

adds a laugh track, removes it,

decides the silence is more accurate.

-----

Anticipation loads the future like a spring.

Anger strikes it with a match.

The room learns new verbs.

Aggressiveness doesn’t knock; it edits the doorway,

speaks in exclamation points that bruise,

moves forward like it’s being chased

by a version of itself it refuses to meet.

-----

Surprise drops the glass mid-sentence.

Sadness kneels to collect the pieces.

No one bleeds yet; that’s part of the problem.

Disapproval is a quiet stamp pressed into wet paper,

a face that closes one window at a time,

filing you under not today,

then alphabetizing the distance.

-----

©2026 Christopher Reilley

Shared with DVerse Poets Pub for Open Link Night.

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