if i believed in
shooting stars
birthday candles
lost eyelashes or
dandelion fuzz
i would be wasting
every single
wish on one thing

that the smell of
vanilla and coco butter
that always
surrounds me

was burned into
your mind so
strongly that you
sometimes smell it
when it isn't there
and the uncertainty of
not remembering
where it's from
bothers you late
at night on the rare
occasions when
you can't sleep

(a distant memory
of last summer that
you can't quite
pin down
something coated in
simmering heat and
copious amounts of sugar
grass stains
scribbled notebook pages
a teddy bear and
slightly out of tune
ukulele music)

and it became something
that you would go to great
lengths to trace
something you would
like to smell
for the rest of your life

but i never said i
believed in wishes at all.