Among the inert gases lowest on the Periodic Table of Elements is love

Being inert love rarely bonds, requiring the meeting of two specific individuals, their union instigated by a certain kind of conversation and formalized, typically in the sterility of a bedroom, though there are no shortage of alternate venues. 

Neon makes light, so does krypton, argon can be used in welding, xenon prompts a strobe light’s twitching, radon is an old cancer cure, helium is helium, and love produces a dense, slow burning fuel, which, depending on its application and external conditions, can keep two people together for around thirty years, often many more.

Many believe this fuel eases and answers humankind’s truest need, the need for a convincing impression of security. Love is marketed as a cure for a 20-somethings’ inability to feel comfortable in his or her skin and the missing ingredient between warring societies. Love is everywhere, an invisible odorless small part of the air, easy to isolate and sprinkle onto guitar chords and the welcoming ceremonies of visiting dignitaries.

Love’s pervasive presence is regularly mistaken as being indicative of how easy making the gas bond should be (guns are as good, if not better, at providing the impression of security). Bodies agree in few places. Words have as many options for connecting. Two people assume a compromising position that best enables these connections. The position is an achy one and requires much maintenance. The dense gas surrounds them, flows between them, begins to bond, holds.

No mechanism exists to measure with any certainty whether a human life is more significant than a styrofoam cup or the animals preceding apes. A coil fashioned from all the earth's elements spins forward and around from earth's beginning to earth's end and bonded love is a crook in this coil.