![\"hadr\"](\"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/hadr.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nby Harnidh Kaur<\/p>\n
I used to smoke, and a lot, at that,
\nand I quit it, cold turkey one day-
\nit wasn\u2019t easy, my nose still traces
\nthe traces of nicotine that stain the
\nair like they once stained my teeth,
\nbut I\u2019m okay now, I suppose, I have
\na list of vices that are presumably
\nunder my control, and I count love
\namongst that them, or I would, if
\nit actually were, but let me tell you
\nhow love is manufactured (not by
\ncapitalism, no, though that would
\nbe a fine guess). There\u2019s a certain,
\nremarkable maliciousness to love,
\nthe neuroscience behind it, very
\ntelling of how, despite all that talk
\nof being the most powerful predators,
\nwe\u2019re still prey to the fallacies
\nof fancy and words. The amygdala is
\nalmond shaped, sitting pretty like
\nthe crown jewel on the temporal
\nlobe, near the side of your head- you
\nwouldn\u2019t notice it, unless you paid
\ncareful attention (just like she would
\nhave slipped away if you didn\u2019t catch
\nthe sparkle of her ring against the
\nbar\u2019s strategic dim lighting), and its
\nsize belies the histories of its growth
\n(just like how you would\u2019ve never
\nguessed how a body that tiny could
\nhold so much anger, and beauty, and
\npassion), and this is where the neurons
\nthat engage the stress response in
\nyour body fire from (like the sparkling,
\nvenomous barbs she shot at you,
\nleaving physical reactions in their
\nwake), leading to a fight or flight
\nsyndrome (you barricading yourself
\ninto the bathroom for three hours,
\nmaking winding mental lists of the
\npros and cons of leaving at that very
\nmoment), now mixed with all the
\nserotonin your brain could produce,
\nand then some more (your lips against
\nher neck as you felt the thrum of her
\nheartbeat pick up with yours), and
\nyou fought, you fought, you fought,
\nfirst her, then the doubts, then yourself-
\nalways finding reasons to make up
\nand make pretty till you found an
\nunknown reflection on the mirror
\nyou never knew you had on the roof-
\nif you were to be diagnosed, it
\nwould have been with addiction,
\nnot love, not romance, not want,
\nnot need, just sordid inability.
\n(but you already knew that, didn\u2019t you?)<\/p>\n
###<\/p>\n
Harnidh is a 21-year-old student from India. Her first book is called The Inability of Words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Neuroscience by Harnidh Kaur I used to smoke, and a lot, at that, and I quit it, cold turkey one day- it wasn\u2019t easy, my nose still traces the traces of nicotine that stain the air like they once stained my teeth, but I\u2019m okay now, I suppose, I have a list of vices that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-poem"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}