Smelling Salts
Home Scents
March, 2025
They say every home has a smell that its inhabitants are immune to—
too used to their own skin,
too complacent in their dust,
too wrapped up in living
to notice.
It is only when one goes on a long vacation—
the kind a meager poet’s living cannot manage—
that the scent is apparent to those who make it.
Injustice!
I cry.
Because my dinner burns on the stovetop when I’m not paying attention
and my paint, pungent and opaque, runs freely from its tube when I’m focused
and I open my window when the daylight reeks of cigarettes and spring
and I burn sweet candles on passionate nights
and what is life if not a series of these things?
Yet still I cannot detect their cumulative stench—
my creation,
the only child I will ever be strong enough to care for,
the only figment I will ever have the right to,
my life,
my filth.
It’s some kind of attack on the ordinary—
a curse that smells of humankind,
a smell to which I refuse to be immune
no matter how fast it dissipates.
Him
April, 2025
Sometimes when I smell tobacco, I can’t help but think of you,
or that horrible beer stench that always seems to find me on the weekends,
and it makes me angry.
I would like to believe myself immune to anger after all these years.
I would like to believe so,
but you wouldn’t know.
One would think there would be an escape by now,
or at least I would—
it seems yours never came.
So I found one,
for me.
Yet still, every once and a while, I smell tobacco
and I can’t help but think of you.
I think about the lake.
I think about the man who stood by it all those years, playing his instruments all at once,
and winning in the end.
I think about you, and the frozen custard we ate while we listened,
and the difference between frozen custard and ice cream.
Because there is one.
And, maybe there is one between then and now too—
just until I smell that terrible beer and I think of you.
I think about how your victory never came.
I thought for a while that I was supposed to be a part of it:
a trophy at least, a partner in crime at best.
But, I couldn’t handle it—
when push came to shove, I laid down my weapons and ran.
And, you ran too,
but it seems escape never came for you.
Home Scents (Part Two)
April, 2025
We lived in a brown brick apartment building
where the closets were nice enough and the kitchen often dirty.
It had a permanence to it.
It had a mother that did too,
even when nothing else felt that way.
Down the street lived a pink house
with lighter pink shutters and a nice looking glow in the young spring sun.
I noticed, but she didn’t.
/
We lived in a building that I think was yellow,
but time leaves me unsure.
It had a leaky ceiling and a chipmunk in the wall.
It had a drunk, drunk man with a way of hiding it
from untrained noses.
Down the street sat a wooden store
owned by an older man and staffed by him too.
He gave me chocolate, and his door chimed when it opened.
/
We lived in a white house,
one that reeked of things past.
It had a thick carpet and
a couple of cats
(whom I miss dearly).
Down the street, everything has changed.
The pink house is white.
The man has gone to a foreign land.
Sometimes I feel like I have, too.
Until I smell the home scent,
pungent and varied,
and I remember
that I have never changed,
even when I wanted to,
even when I begged.
/
I drive by those houses every now and again,
because now we live in a gray one, and it’s not the same.
The other ones are old to me now, but young to another,
I’m sure of it.
They have a permanence to them,
a foundation that doesn’t quit,
and I haven’t quit yet, either
(even when I wanted to,
even when I begged).
Alyssa Dawson is a hobbyist writer and a professional New York Times crossword puzzle enjoyer. She is also a second-year political science and international relations major at SUNY Geneseo. In her free time, she enjoys painting, watching movies, and talking incessantly about her niche interests.