A Neuroscientist's Love Letter
Published on Jan 21, 2020
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
I know you are terrified.
Your brain trembles in your skull.
Intricate layers of matter
Cradle microscopic chaos,
And everywhere your neurotransmitters scream.
Photo by reidab
You are going to die, they say,
But don’t shoot the messenger.
Photo by Lisheng Chang
If I was the kind of person
You couldn’t get out of your head,
I’d sprint through your synapses,
Crawl through every cortex,
Just to find the source of your
Misplaced adrenaline,
And tell your amygdala to leave
Your night alone.
Photo by ManelTor
You deserve more than fear.
If I was always on your mind,
I’d study the snowflake dendrites
Always reaching for an answer,
The way your neurons tell you that
Tomorrow could be even worse,
How they are just trying to do their job,
But like you, they tried too hard.
Photo by anne arnould
And not even the endless caverns of your cerebellum, Not the nerve fibers bending in a quiet forest,
Not even the footprints of memory
Stamped in temporary permanence
All over your brain
Are perfect.
Photo by National Institutes of Health (NIH)
But you are afraid. You say it’s because
The night is too long, because you are
Not good enough, lonely or alone,
One of the two.
This is the truth,
This is why.
Your serotonin levels fell with the sky.
Photo by Gabriele Motter
Adrenaline battled to compensate,
And now you’re always running away.
This darkness through the window,
The shadow where torture hides?
Photo by Jon Tyson
It’s a lack of endorphins, increase in epinephrine, Compounded by an autonomic response.
Fight or flight, fight or flight,
Cries the organ that owns you.
Photo by chascow
But even if you’re out of your mind,
I hope I’m still in the back of it somewhere.
Photo by Greg Rakozy
I will fight through every waterfall of panic, Chemicals engulfing me in their tsunami strength, Every tipped-scale imbalance,
Past every overactive gland and through
The corridors of your logic, your learned behaviors, The union of sight and seeing,
And I hope you see me,
I hope you trust what I have learned.
Photo by Rachel Ruquet
Your brain is too beautiful to stay terrified
Forever.
Photo by Neillwphoto
