After class, she studied her books
?, ?, µ, ?, ?, g, F
Pages of equations, leading to more equations, leading to numbers
Layers upon layers of complexity
Woven from years of conjectures
It was at the corner of E= F/q and F=(Q_1 Q_2)/(4?r^2 ?_0 )
When it found her, smashing in her skull
Stealing her breath, blinding her sight
Almost Newton’s apple, but not quite
It was the tree from which the fruit first fell
Whose trunk and arms had stood ignored
This first sip of nectar
That made ?, ?, µ, ?, ?, g, F turn into pillars of salt
That made the experiments irrelevant
That made the conclusions crumble apart
For this one grain of first truth
Smaller than the tiniest particle
More powerful than any force on earth
Infinite in its breadth
Was the first truth, the truth before anything else
Something that we had buried along the way and left to fester
But somehow she had found it,
Stumbled upon where it sat waiting
In the back of every consciousness
And the longer she thought it, the more it consumed her
A starved idea it electrocuting each nerve
She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep
She feverishly screamed in scraps
And every time her cries came out
They circled around the writhing earth
Tickling the dark recesses of every mind
Mothers felt it, fathers too
The smallest children ceased their crying
Scientists stopped, philosophers paused
And as it traveled through
The whispers of a shaking truth
What were they supposed to do?
She was taken, led away
Locked up in a soundproof room
No light came in, no light came out,
Every fiber sealed away
Because if that truth could overturn the world?
No one really wants to hear it.