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Covalent Bonding\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the end\u00a0I couldn\u2019t compete<\/p>\n with the intermolecular pull that drew you to her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Me, the less reactive one – bookish,\u00a0inert,<\/p>\n our bond replaced by her sizzling reactivity.<\/p>\n The day I overheard\u00a0in the common room<\/p>\n that the reaction had occurred, that\u2019s when I knew<\/p>\n I had been displaced, that your inner shell<\/p>\n now brimmed with stability.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I failed chemistry that\u00a0year.<\/p>\n She was in lower Sixth<\/p>\n and from the back row of the re-sits<\/p>\n I watched the outline\u00a0of her flimsy bra strap<\/p>\n undulate across her shoulder blades<\/p>\n as she leaned\u00a0in close to the desk,<\/p>\n and I tried not to imagine how familiar<\/p>\n you now found\u00a0her otherness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even your names possessed a hidden consonance,<\/p>\n as though your fates\u00a0were held suspended somehow<\/p>\n in molecular design.\u00a0\u2028A force stronger than us both<\/p>\n let\u00a0you take those atoms from me<\/p>\n and give them to her,<\/p>\n leaving my one remaining electron<\/p>\n quaking in its outer shell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n