A Lesson in Chemistry

Navaris Darson

Every time we touch, 

pulses of euphoria 

radiate through my body.

You feel it too, 

but you dismiss 

the phenomenon.

“It’s endorphins,” 

you say. “Science.”

And I agree.

I fully understand 

that this euphoria 

is a chemical reaction—

A rush of molecules 

that makes me feel 

one with the cosmos.

But knowing the cause 

of something wonderful 

does not lessen its wonder.

And science is not 

the antithesis of romance.

Though we grasp the cause 

of this transcendence, 

some mystery remains. 

Can science explain 

why I feel this rush 

with you alone 

and no other?

Why our atoms 

spark upon collision 

and why our synapses 

branch into pyrotechnics?

Why nothing else 

fills the entirety of my being 

with such all-encompassing joy?

You are right: it is only endorphins 

pulling strings behind the curtain

But our attraction 

is something that science 

can only aspire to explain 

And therein—in those questions

that science cannot answer—

lies the purest and holiest magic.

November 14, 2019