My brother brushes past me in the kitchen.
I find myself offended, not for his rudeness nor the brash way he attempts to apologize.
But because on my own flesh and blood I smell him.
It has been years but the odor of his cologne still sends me spiraling.

Memory is a haunting thing.

How am I supposed to move on when every wide eyed, bro-tank wearing beef cake smells like my worst nightmare,
It feels like I am just trying to escape,
but was forced into Stockholm's syndrome via perfumed air and this sense of helplessness that I cannot bear.

This is what it feels like to drown all over again,
but this time I am perpetually a scared 14 year old girl, and it is arms surrounding me not lake water.
I could find irony in using that brand of cologne to light myself on fire,
or to inhale the aerosol into my already full lungs for a short high
Either way it would be the same as killing myself all over again.

Half of me is still on that mattress somewhere,
I don't know how to get her back, or why I want her so bad.
But, how can I make this little girl inside stop crying if I'm not there to comfort her?
How could I ever be there to comfort her?

I am so broken and bruised,
I still flinch when hit in spaces once blackened by hands I thought I knew.