She hugged me, and I breathed in deep.
Better than any perfume or cologne in the world, I know that smell.
It's the scent of a thousand lost boy summers fighting pirates and chasing shadows.
It's rust dust and rail yards and campfire smoke.
It's gypsy smiles and moldy locks and secrets whispered through the trees.
It's waking up to gentle words from complete strangers we connected with the night before.
It's the scent of broken lips and battered kisses the morning after sturgis.
It's the sun glistening off an oil stain on the highway.
It's the scent of river washed clothes and ticks and lice and fleas and kids named after all those things.

It's a scent of secret love affairs, and ****** exploration and anarchist propaganda.
It's the smell of the E.L.F. And the Crimethinc. Ex Workers Collective. It's the smell of the Wobblies.

But mainly, it's a smell that reminds me that they are still out there, laying in wait, in the shadows of the broken fence in the rail yard. Arms willing to hold you and fight for you, and never let you go.