That smell isn't around anymore.
I didn't even realize it until I could barely remember it.

It's the smell of the old place I used to live
alone.
The smell of the doors at night
and the corn patties in the cupboard
and the leather sofa
and my old cat.

It's the smell of the doubt.
The lack of the light.
Being stuck in the middle of the tunnel.
The smell of the tunnel vision.
The smell of the fact that it was
midnight after the journey through the tunnel.

The smell of my heavy chest,
that I smelled with my head hung,
nose close to my heart.

Straight ahead, it doesn't have that heavy smell.
Now it smells of ethnic food.
And breath always on the side of my neck.
It's warm.

The smell of trying and failing.
I only smell success from effortlessness.

Shouts and screams,
bangs in dreams.
We shuddered in the bunk beds
of our sea themed bedroom
like tiny fish.
They didn’t even try to restrain
the noise
or pretend everything was fine.

We hid.

Do you remember when
they were each going to have
one?
Acamera flash of broken moment,
vision torn, my head screamed.

Every cell in revolt.

Hot tears steamed the windows
as we drove away without you.

Memories blur,
but the car
stopped.

As suddenly as it had started.

A return, to what?
She was always too cold and the house was too hot.