Enigma

In high school, calculus and biology were
my favorite subjects.
I relished in how they
were the high-ranking officials in the matter,
the ones able to classify in taxonomy terms,
label in color-coded tabs without so much as a
lub-dub of the cardioid.
 
You were the first,
the first to have committed
every possible logical sin.
You clawed initially as a nagging question—
an infinitesimal black seed lodged in a nook,
but even holding something light for
a long time doesn’t make it easy.
 
Oh, if only I could penetrate
that masked surface of yours, my fingers would stop
twitching all the time.
I’ve tried for days on end to
quantify your breaths,
classify the color of your disheveled bangs,
expose those question marks and nascent curves brimming
just below gray-stretched skin.
But every time I think I’ve written the perfect equation for you,
you twist an integral around my neat figures.
Back to square one again, miss.
I’ve been forced to erase my
concrete slate for too long.
One time too many, and I’ve all but let go.
As my fingers blossom open,
petal by petal,
I realize that that’s how I’ll
always remember you:
an enigma in the haze.
 
I’d like to think that I could always rally derivatives
and microscopes to my aid,
that my eyes could extricate
the answer by merely gazing,
but equations and theories can’t solve people.