oui, the stench

 you can tell a lot about a person
by the way they smell. i walked past
a rotten looking lady yesterday and she
stank of the minimal amount of people
that were at the grocery store. she
was shopping for four kids that made
her old bleach blonde hairs twist
into grays, while her milk rotted out
in her car.

that night when he fell asleep with
his hair on my neck i caught a whiff:
he smelled like the house that was
abandoned by everyone but me all those
years ago. he smelled of my friend's
grandfather's deathbed, of a cologne
that grazed his skin three nights before.
he smelled like the grime under his
fingernails. he smelled like the sad
that i didn't want to admit.

i spent the night drying my eyes by
keeping them open. the morning brought
a cold that stopped me from remembering
anything, and i was so grateful to smell
nothing. i was so grateful to be done.