Scents
I have always been cautious of people with scents.
I told myself,
“Do not fall in love with someone who smells like spring.
He will make flowers bloom in your heart,
And they will be beautiful.
You will give them to him so he can
Tuck them behind his ear, or
Wear them around his head, or
Turn them into perfume for you to wear.
But winter will come, and the flowers will wilt,
And he will fade away,
And you will be alone,
Standing in the snow,
Without a heart.”
I told myself,
“Do not fall in love with someone who smells like the ocean.
His waves will crash over you and you will melt into almost nothing.
You will be scattered among the shore.
And when he rolls back into the sea,
He will take little grains of you with him,
And scatter the rest like sand
Among the rocks and the shells and the wind.
It will be so hard to rebuild your castle again.”
I told myself,
“Do not fall in love with someone who smells like ash.
You will try to turn him into a phoenix,
Forgetting he was the one who lit the fire.
He will grow his wings,
Learn to fly on his own,
And leave you standing in his shadow,
Covered in soot and smoke.
He will not remember that he used the fire from your soul to burn again.”
I told myself,
“Do not fall in love with someone who smells like rain.
He will flood you head with poems and songs,
Serenade your mind with love letters and the promise of rainbows,
But he will turn into a hurricane, and you will be left in shambles.
Drenched and cold, you will welcome the burn from his lightning hands
Against your cheek.
Or your arm.
Or your chest,
You will not realize rain is supposed to make you grow,
Not disintegrate.
You will wash away from his raindrops and your tears.”
---
Instead,
I fell in love with someone who smells like trees.
He planted seeds in my lungs.
They took root, and
I learnt how to breathe again.
His sunshine made the tree grow so tall that
Branches rose up through my throat.
With every breath I took,
With every word I spoke,
With every beat of my heart,
Leaves budded in my chest.
He told me that autumn was his favorite season,
So I blew them off their stems, and
Used their colors to paint him pictures.
I pulled out my branches to build him a throne.
I carved our names into the trunk of the tree.
I whittled him new hands to hold,
Because mine had begun to rot.
I saved my tears.
Collected them into a bowl to make him a mirror so that
He could see his light bounce off the water.
I tore my lungs out by the roots so that he could learn how to breathe again,
and
Suddenly,
I had given him everything.
My secrets were ingrained into his being.
He left my lungs hollow,
Gasping for air,
Shriveling up in the darkness,
Crumbling on top of each other,
I was suffocating on nothingness.
He left pollen footprints on my soul, and
Sprinkled soil through my veins in his wake.
I watched him grow a forest in another girl’s chest,
While I was left in a leaf pile instead of a body.
I could not tell her,
“Do not fall in love with someone who smells like trees.
He will make you forget what it is like to breath without roots congesting your lungs.
You will want to grow and reach your branches out
To hand him your still-beating heart,
So you will break through your rib cage,
Smashing your bones and shattering your heart on their splinters.
Your leaves will fade to brown.
They will begin to crumble and decay away, but
Remember that your trunk is strong.
Dig your roots out of your lungs and burrow them in your feet.
Do not let him sway you with this wind.
Your leaves may fall, but
Use your branches to find your balance,
Remember that autumn is not a funeral.
It is a reminder that heartbreak cannot tear you down.
Spring will always come again.
Leaves always grow,
The sun always sets,
And you will always heal.”