the balmy issue
Light with metal and cardamom. I could not tell if she kept it hidden in her pockets or if it rose naturally; something uncontainable; like the weather that arrives without asking permission. It followed her in; then stayed after she left; sharper than her voice; more precise than the words she used. I thought of it hours later; when I touched the sleeve of my own coat and it was still there.
I don't know what a cardamom is. Scents are like that. They become proof of presence. More reliable than memory; less forgiving than photographs. I have tried to live as if rooms hold nothing of me when I walk out; but that is a lie. Rooms hold everything. Oil from the skin on a chair; detergent clinging to a shirt; the salt of sweat that never fully vanishes. You walk away and believe you are gone; but the record insists otherwise.
Neuroplasticity at its finest. One trace rewires the body into believing again. Metal turns into the edge of a night you once thought you forgot. Cardamom becomes the kitchen at dawn, when the light was too clean to deny. The mind pairs smell with memory, you think you are safe.
I notice the calcium grow from the bottom up. A slow white line, almost invisible until there's nothing on my calendar. Every Sunday I scrub it back down. Skin raw. It will come back. I know it will. I am happy it does. It proves the cycle. The fact that something insists on leaving its mark no matter how often I erase it.
The culture insists you curate it. Bottles lined up. Promises of top notes and base notes. Instructions on how to project. But the curation only layers. The truth bleeds through. The body chooses what it keeps. And what it offers. I could spray something expensive and still carry the ghost of garlic, of bus exhaust, of unwashed coins.
Light knew what was done. Metal and cardamom. No floral. No citrus. No softness. She chose to enter the room with an edge and a burn. After all, if it's expected they'll smell it anyway. She knew that to walk in without speaking was still to speak. I do not leave much to imagination when I write. I make my thoughts clear. I strip them until nothing is left for the reader, not even for myself. I assume the scent of my writing is no different than the yellowed pressed pages in a soft paperback. I like that smell, not as much as I like my writing.
Smelling Jane Austen's writing was much less pleasant when I opened my eyes.
I imagine my future self will find anger in this. Anger at how I refused to think. How I locked the door on complexity to avoid being misread. The ones I don't post are better, don't worry. They all sound mansplained, but if it's for me, then it doesn't count. As if I can claim neutrality. There is no neutrality. To write is to leave behind a record as stubborn as a scent. I say no one exists but me. The page betrays me. The archive does not wait for permission.
When I think of Light, I think of that combination. Metal. Cardamom. Enough to unsettle. She did not have to say a word. The record was written.
I wonder what clings to me without my knowing. What archive of me is carried on other people’s hands. Maybe that is what permanence is.