Catalyst,
You altered me.
Sped up my activation energy,
And I, heterogenous, confused in
Myself,
Took to you like the drug you were.
The sequence of bond making and
Bond breaking
Is so rapid in the formation of steps
That I barely saw it coming.
Polar to polar,
Trapped in an ionic bond,
Different but the same we
Combusted, exploded—
Our product didn’t equal
Our reactants.
You left out a rather important chemical;
But maybe the chemistry wasn’t there
To begin with.
The thing is you’re as much of a mystery
To me
As are the workings of chemistry.
But never were you comprised of formulas and
Never were your reactions stable truths.
Always just out of reach,
Still somehow the air I breathe
You, the solvent, and I, dissolved,
Succumbed to your mystery.