tris(triphenylphosphine)rhodium chloride

It doesn't feel like that long ago.

There are days when I am sure that I'm the same girl I once was

and then I sit down to write poetry and all that comes out of my mind

is reaction mechanisms, catalytic molecules 

and the perfect, gemlike hexagon of a benzene ring.

It is beautiful in its own way, neat and sensible but still a bit mysterious. 

This is why I'm not a physicist, the Higgs Boson Particle does not sit for portraits.

Perhaps this is who I am now,

perhaps I will doodle organic molecules and tropical plants in my margins

(yes, they are botanically accurate. yes, I know how strange I am.)

and this will be my poetry.

They make my heart race just the same as the small print of yesterday.

What frightens me is that these ideas that consume my life

cannot be printed off and handed out on street corners and reach someone who loves them too.

They cannot be put in a book that will be shelved next to Billy Collins someday. (alphabetical order be damned!)

I cannot send them to my mother and make her laugh, or cry. 

Perhaps I am still the same girl, but more so, the girl who loved to be alone,

who desired to be different and interesting

because the brand of poetry that leaps from my pen is no longer one-size-fits-all.

Perhaps one day my thoughts will settle down

and I will write in a way that does not lay a barrier

between me and the reader so that I am alone in my mind.

Maybe that is what growing up is all about. You learn. 

But some days, when the sun shines especially bright

or just when your writing hand has that spectacular itch for prose

you must forget what you have learned
to remember who you are.

a note: The molecule in the title is Wilkinson's Catalyst, used to catalyze the hydrogenation of alkenes. Just in case you wanted to know.