your scents make you
like a sweater laden with the aroma baked cookies,
and the faint hint of your friend's cologne
it is a comfort, hanging on your shoulders
or a sweet girl's perfume
that smells of chamomile and honey
her naive innocence
it is rich, the way it invades your nose
the boy you love
who smells like warmth if it could be bottled up
sweet and sour at the same time,
some drugstore body spray he uses
and yet it reminds you of evenings spent with him,
clinging onto your clothes,
or when some stranger wearing it walks past
even your own smell
beneath this manufactured, manicured
version of you,
is not lost on his skin
or his bedsheets
like the vanilla you used to lather on your skin,
mature and yet demure in its subtle sweetness;
still, your skin tasted of sweat and lust and
you
tell me, what do you smell like?
the clothes that sit in a laundry basket
for a few days,
the candle that burns in your room
i don't know
ask your friends;
they tell you it's a spicy scent;
a medical undertone;
it doesn't even stand out;
here you are,
defining the tang of a boy’s sweat
and what does yours mean to anyone?
nothings, perhaps
and it doesn’t sit well with you;
so you stand in aisles of perfume,
a crowded, over-priced store,
deciding who you want to be
the comforting cookies,
the innocent cup of tea,
it doesn’t even matter
you buy the prettiest bottle,
in lotions, in perfumes, in shower gels
a signature smell, you tell yourself,
maybe will make you make sense
you drench your skin in it for weeks
but you lose the lotion,
you forget to spray the perfume on in the morning,
run out and can’t find the same scent anymore
you borrow your beautiful friend’s perfume for a day
and it reminds you of her
the soft angles of her smile, her mermaid hair
you feel pretty
then it wears off when you get home
and you’re left with
medical, spicy nothing; what does that even mean?
what does it mean
to not know what your own body smells like?
to only have others' smells cling to you
is both a privilege and a hindrance
i am marked by lovers and friends
i have patches of skin that smell like certain boys
but does that not make the skin theirs?
your scent makes you, but i don’t have one.
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 9:06 AM UTC
your scents make you
like a sweater laden with the aroma baked cookies,
and the faint hint of your friend's cologne
it is a comfort, hanging on your shoulders
or a sweet girl's perfume
that smells of chamomile and honey
her naive innocence
it is rich, the way it invades your nose
the boy you love
who smells like warmth if it could be bottled up
sweet and sour at the same time,
some drugstore body spray he uses
and yet it reminds you of evenings spent with him,
clinging onto your clothes,
or when some stranger wearing it walks past
even your own smell
beneath this manufactured, manicured
version of you,
is not lost on his skin
or his bedsheets
like the vanilla you used to lather on your skin,
mature and yet demure in its subtle sweetness;
still, your skin tasted of sweat and lust and
you
tell me, what do you smell like?
the clothes that sit in a laundry basket
for a few days,
the candle that burns in your room
i don't know
ask your friends;
they tell you it's a spicy scent;
a medical undertone;
it doesn't even stand out;
here you are,
defining the tang of a boy’s sweat
and what does yours mean to anyone?
nothings, perhaps
and it doesn’t sit well with you;
so you stand in aisles of perfume,
a crowded, over-priced store,
deciding who you want to be
the comforting cookies,
the innocent cup of tea,
it doesn’t even matter
you buy the prettiest bottle,
in lotions, in perfumes, in shower gels
a signature smell, you tell yourself,
maybe will make you make sense
you drench your skin in it for weeks
but you lose the lotion,
you forget to spray the perfume on in the morning,
run out and can’t find the same scent anymore
you borrow your beautiful friend’s perfume for a day
and it reminds you of her
the soft angles of her smile, her mermaid hair
you feel pretty
then it wears off when you get home
and you’re left with
medical, spicy nothing; what does that even mean?
what does it mean
to not know what your own body smells like?
to only have others' smells cling to you
is both a privilege and a hindrance
i am marked by lovers and friends
i have patches of skin that smell like certain boys
but does that not make the skin theirs?
your scent makes you, but i don’t have one.