i love how everyone has a smell—
not perfume, not sweat,
but the quiet proof of living.
it hides in the folds of their shirts,
in the corners of their house,
in laundry soap,
morning tea,
and rain settling on their balcony
a whole story,
whispered in fabric and air
when you stay with someone long enough
you begin to carry them
without meaning to—
your clothes rinsed in their water,
your hair holding their night,
your breath learning the same rooms
and when you leave
you take something invisible
a softness stitched into cotton,
a trace pressed into you
later you wear the same shirt
and their world opens
the hum of their ceiling fan,
a doorknob that never quite fixed,
footsteps echoing down a familiar floor
you remember then
not only in photographs or words,
but in the fragrance that lingers,
like a soul refusing to be forgotten.
maybe that’s what people are
not only faces, not only language
but the quiet smell between us