Scents

I hardly remember anything. Most of my important memories get stored so deep inside I forget they’re there. Most of my horrible memories I forget. A defense mechanism I suppose. Something I built up as a child to protect myself from my slowly crumbling home. Leaving my blissfully unaware of most things going on around me then, now it’s kind of a problem.

I tend to forget the bad in people handing them money knowing I’ll never get it back. Reaching out and helping that person who asks over and over when I know that they’re only going to fall back into that whole and I’ll have to start over again. I find myself trapped in the moment now. Unable to see beyond this point here and now. The only thing that seems able to bring back any emotion in me at all is the faint smells of things.

The scent of a cigarette two days old still lingering in a room, reminds me of my parents their young faces still full of hope and love for each other, for me, for my brothers and sister.

I often wonder if this is why I slowly kill myself with every inhale. The scent being a sort of comfort for me something that seems to never change regardless of where you stand when you smell it.

Or the smell of lipstick two decades old reminding me of quite little moments with my mother and sister, of childish laughter and blush brush kisses.

The scent of a book freshly opened the pages pouring through your fingers.

This smell I love the most. The scent of ink freshly printed on paper. I love to breath in the fumes and get lost in the possibilities of what it may hold.

The smell of the air before it rains, thick and rich. Freeing in the sense whoever you are where ever you may be or have been or what you’ve done or haven’t done the rain will always touch your skin at least once in your lifetime without judgment or rage.

The crisp clean smell of snow. I hate snow. I truly do but the smell, the smell is like a gift. Refreshing and allows you to feel renewed in some strange way reminding me of childhood and forts and friendships long gone but at the time seemed like they would last forever.

The scent of burning wood through evergreen trees. Like excitement and adventure. Reminds me of summers spent up north in half built forts or diving into lakes. When the world felt like it was open to me and me alone. I was the pioneer forging a place for myself out of nothing.