here's the truth:
i don't remember the way your
cologne smelled. i think it was
something  sharp and bitter; it smelled
like artificiality, like how water at
mini-golf parks are dyed
aquamarine blue. like how
i always felt when i was
trying so ******* hard
to impress you.

the way she smiles at you is predatory,
hungry. i can tell that you think it's
wholesome.

the air around you thrummed with
the tang of sour salt-water, soaked
in unnatural musk. i remember thinking,
as phys ed came to an end,
that you smelled like you had bathed in a
neverland lagoon as the *******, brooding
mermaids soaked in your attention, your
velvety voice.

she grabbed you and made your
hers.
i felt a quaking sense of relief
in my bones, a whispering that
distance would come easier now;
you could, would, should
never be mine.

when i pass that smell, your smell,
in the perfume aisle at the macy's i always hated,
i reach out and let the bottle's
glass trap the past in the carefully
chiseled, perfect edges
that reminds me too much of
my aching teenage heart.
once, i wanted to fit the fashion
only if that fashion guaranteed me
you. today, i hope i never
see the eyes matching
that artificial lagoon.

i cried for a week,
oceans of tears that surely
didn't smell the way you had,
getting the last traces of you
washed from my soul. and then you were
gone, and i thought the world had
stopped spinning on its axis for a month.
and for thirty days,
i had never been more
wrong.

what would that scent be to me now,
a year later? would it still
stop me dead? would my mind
compensate for the things i've let slip
through my fingers? or would i
remember, would i bite back
a cry and race away,
knowing my past,
knowing my future cannot repeat
the mistakes i once made.

i remember the first time
i thought the words, wrote them
down on paper, owned them in
my soul.

*i

am

free.