smell is a powerful tool,
so you attempt its use.
its ability to transport,
for travel, for shifting
your rigid meat into a space
less barbed and buzzing.
a whiff and remembrance
swells (like ocean)
and you remember
(like ocean) that once you existed
in different states. like New York
and uncomfortable. like Alaska
and unconscious.
today you are mostly alive
in panic, or sighing sweetly
into sleep. outside
of these states (New York,
nervous) you rarely find footing.
so you try for the olfactory
shape-shift, to see if smell can awaken
you to a different passport,
borders and stamps. an ocean
not salted with memory, swelling.
remember, pizza and movies and
calm? remember when you loved
those women until they would no longer
talk to you? that is an indoctrinated form
of love and swelling, (ocean)
memory, similar to your experience
of love as a pugilist;
its strike bringing bright blooming
and ringing. so now we move
into bells (warm, ringing):
yes, you loved
her in the way that love loves
to strike; to ring
your bell (head) and blossom
upon your skin (blooming).
your tongue twitches
like the fish;
of your angry and despairing
father, of the ocean (memory),
and you’ve talked yourself from
love into silence. just
as a rung bell (warm,
blooming) both calls forth and casts
away. attempting to hold
panic in your hands, you
(ocean) swell with the smell
of ringing (bell) memory.
you were once
a child and will some
day perhaps be
elderly. today
you are uncomfortable
or unconscious.
today you surround
yourself, like parenthesis.
like (ocean, memory, bell,
bloom) the ovals of your nostrils
and the slow waking
to what might be a difference
(Alaska, joy, calm, Vermont) in
understanding. States and states,
you see?
hug yourself and don’t talk
yourself from love to hate. she won’t
say she hates you but she does.
only someone who loves you can
possibly hate you. did you hate
yourself for all those years? did you
not know that it was love? that you
are (worthy, valuable,
deserving) love?
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