Darkness
Aug 30 2026
When I first read about dark oxygen
it sounded sinister.
Or at least mysterious.
Perhaps didn’t even exist;
like dark matter and dark energy,
stuff we made up
to plug into sums
just to make them work.
But turns out it’s real
and no worse than the regular stuff,
an electron thief
that burns, corrodes, and rusts.
That 3 minutes without
is certain death.
Found deep underground
where light has never reached
there is oxygen
not made by plants.
Dwelling in the planet’s crust
in absolute darkness
from before life as we know it came to be.
And the darkness in the heart of Man?
Burning inside
with greed and desire,
corroding the moral fibre
that holds us up.
Lurking
beneath the surface
where it’s always been,
a cold lightless nub
we all carry
like a poisoned seed.
The x in the equation
of good and evil
that could tip it either way.
If dark oxygen
exists in a dark lifeless underworld
and comes from who knows what,
dark energy
might make the universe expand
out to absolute zero
until nothing remains,
and dark matter make it collapse
into a dense singularity,
this darkness makes us shrink;
shrivelling up
into small hard stubs
impervious to shame.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mystery-of-dark-oxygen
An interesting article about this. Thought there might be a poem in it.
(Btw, why do we say “shrivel up”, not “shrivel down”??)
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