Mom is cleaning out her perfumes today,
hands me a bottle,
says this is what she wore when she was my age.
The musk shakes onto my palms,
the bottle fogs at my sweat.
I am remembering her scent.
The sharp bottles of Armani Code Blue
stare up at me from her vanity.

When I was 5 years old,
I wanted to look like mami,
so I used her cherry blush,
her **** lipsticks,
capping them  before twisting them down,
opening her perfumes and painting my legs with them.
My mom came home,
saw the powder spilling on the mirror,
and cried until her limbs shook.

I am remembering the basement.
I was 8 and shivering,
mom sank into the swell of a rain slapped carpet,
grabs my wrists, wrings them into the shape
of a J’adore bottle,
wrapped and twisted and golden,
asks me why all I do is fight her.
Her favorite perfume stains my arms red.
This was the first time I ever felt scared of my own mother.

My mother and I are different in our scents.
While I smell like blood and lipstick,
she is as aggressive as the perfume she wears,
the bottles in her lines in her bedroom,
Today she decided to get rid of them.
I hope she knows
no amount of perfume can make me forget the cigarettes,
the kicking,
the mangled wrists,
the drips of her perfume on my eyelashes.

I am wearing her perfume today.
The musk grabs my wrists and strips them.
I hope she knows that I forgive her.
That the smell of her is still with me.