PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I sit in the car, anticipating the voice on the other end of the phone line; no answer. I had just spent an hour trapped in the car with mom and dad; being in such close proximity to the parental units for prolonged periods of time during the teenage years are simply unbearable. I am getting through it for one reason: Damien and I are going to hang out. I send a text message, in hope of instigating a response of some sort. “So, here I am in Newton. Where do you want to meet up?” I type with my thumbs. My parents look back at me “what are we doing?” In a moment of fear, I tell them we are going around Boston looking at History: Lexington, Concord, and Walden Pond… the good stuff. They can almost smell my misfortunate lies of despair. I don’t text Damien to tell him I am leaving his town, but then again, he never texts or calls me.

About two hours after we had planned to meet, my phone buzzes. My excitement was beyond apparent, that is, until I read the message I received. “Oh, I’m so sorry… I never told you, I am working today, and after work I’m spending the day with Mollie, that girl I told you about when I broke up with you. Remember her?” My eyes begin to water “I know that I persuaded you to like me more than you originally did, but long distance relationships are hard as it is. And I’m going away for four months, come January” I argue and give him every possibility I can think of “Let’s just forget labels! We don’t need ‘dating’ or ‘friends’ or ‘relationship’ or ‘friends with bens’, just hang out, and enjoy our time, no?” All strands of hope snap, and entirely disconnect from the wiring within me. “We have lives at home, though, you know that…” I don’t have a life at home though. “This girl Mollie, she likes me, and she’s much easier to see than you. So I’m going with that.”  I hadn’t liked him to start the way he had liked me. I wasn’t ready for heartbreak. “Trust me, I know this is gonna work out” he says, as he holds me closer to him, continuing to dance pathetically to the music. I become comfortable with the thought of him, let myself trust him, let myself feel.

But it was heartbreak time. “I want to do that, the no labels thing, but I’m afraid we need a label. And it seems obvious to me that the only option now is ‘friends’. You’re a really great person, anyone’s lucky to have you… just… not me.” I sit in the car, knowing that I won’t see him. The smell of lonely emptiness invades the air around me. I can smell loneliness. Almost as painful as the smell of oww. I feel the tennis ball as it collides into my nose. I smell the oww. I smell the pain of dejection and rejection. I won’t be seeing him. I have lost him, again. Here he is, gone and slipped away, after I had him so close just a few weeks ago. He plays with my hands, as he holds them in his, arm around me.

He moves my hair slowly away from my face and spins my ring, as we speak and wish that all the advisors would stop staring at us. “So, didja hook up yet?” shouts Jacquie as she runs over to us, jumpy and excited. Of course we hadn’t, too many people were around and I don’t know if I like him. “Come, dance with me” he says. He holds me close, and whispers in my ear. I won’t see him today, he slipped away, leaving me with the void of emptiness, reeking of lonely with a hint of oww. “I have to confess…there’s something I’ve been wanting to do since this summer, but I couldn’t because of someone else in the picture.” I pretend to be clueless while attempting to conceal that I am a nervous wreck. “I think you know what I’m talking about.” He leans in, but I couldn’t. I don’t like him, I just can’t bring myself to let it happen. I like him, and he has no interest anymore. I am stood up, and dumped. I wonder if he’d have kept faith in me if I had kissed him. I move my face to the side and hug him close, resting my nose and mouth on his shoulder.

As I embrace him here, with my face on his shoulder, I can smell the vanilla crème soda lip balm. My lips are cracking and splitting in their barren de-moisturized condition. I go across the room to grab something to put on them, to heal them. Vanilla Crème, sounds alright. It feels somewhat soothing, and smells so tasty. It tastes all right, but not overwhelmingly good; people aren’t meant to eat lip balm. I rub it onto the bottom lip a little more. I call mom in, to put the tin of balm back on the dresser; I am too lazy to move. As she walks in, I feel sick: “Eww! You put on that lotion, didn’t you!?” First scent of this lotion, and I could throw up. “Mom, please, I know you’re trying to help me by sleeping down here with me, but you have to stop using that lotion. The treatment makes me sick enough.” Having the meningitis is one tragedy, developing an allergic reaction to the medication is another.

I throw up each night during treatment, and I am overly nauseous all the time. This lotion, every time she walks into the basement, where our beds are temporarily pushed together, permeates the atmosphere.

I can smell the lip balm everywhere. Why do his shoulders smell like that? I hadn’t used it in a couple of days. Was he dancing with someone else? Did they have my lip balm? Lips. Kissing. I feel the soft touch of his lips meeting mine. “Before you go…” he says, as he took my face gently between his fingers and leads it towards his, tenderly resting his lips on mine for just a moment before saying “you’re adorable, and I’m going to miss you.” He tries to kiss me, and I place my face on his shoulder, which seemed to smell like vanilla crème lip balm. I whisper into his ear “I’m sorry… I just… suck at life.” I am about to leave, told him it was time to get going. Hugging, I whisper “I’m sorry again, about that whole… ‘I suck at life’ thing.” He seems to understand, and nods comprehensively- that is- until he leans in to kiss me again. If only I could kiss him now. If I had kissed him, would I have been told “friends is the only way it can be”?

Would I be sitting alone in the back seat of this car, smelling solitude, without plans for the afternoon? I shy away, and hug him close to me. “I’m sorry you suck at life too..” he whispers to me. I then have the sweetest and least disgusting and overly excessive kiss of my life. A soft sweet touch, passing the sentiment of affection from him to me. How I wish I hadn’t rejected him. Would things be different? The worst part is not knowing. My lips are dry. I reach beside me in my state of half-consciousness. The first thing I find is a little yellow canister. I push the lid open, and sink my ring finger into the goo. I begin to apply the balm to my lips, and the fragrance envelops the ambiance and all of me and my thoughts. I am sucked into a vacuum of scent and pain. I reach the last step, on the way back down from the Bunker Hill Monument. 294 spiral stairs up, and then back down. That’s approximately 600 stairs I just walked.

My legs turn into jello and I trip on the last step, landing face down on the floor in front of the tourist crowds. I almost lose consciousness, and I almost wish that I had. I can smell the oww in my nose, and my heart still smells the solitude and emptiness. I can smell life, and question the smell of death. 3rd floor, that’s where Nana is. This is the smell of old people; the smell of nearly death. She doesn’t recognize anyone, not even her son. She hasn’t spoken a word in ages. I watch her open and close her mouth “hi..” she says, before words fail her and her body disallows any further communication on her end. I see thoughts going on in her head, but her inability to communicate to us. I feel like this sometimes, but what I would do to never deal with this.

Being trapped in my own corpse, it would be the worst thing imaginable. I can smell the old people. I smell death. I smell life and consciousness. I smell the ground and I smell the oww. I smell the oww. I smell the loneliness, the emptiness, the despair, the pathetic-ness that is my life. I smell it all. And in this moment, I wish I had no nose, or lost the sense to smell. I’ve always been told I’m so lucky to have all my senses, but I don’t believe them. Having all my senses can be more painful than if I didn’t have them. A tear rolls down my cheek and I tune my parents out. We’re going to finish our tour of History, and I’ll have to tell them, we’re not going back to Newton to see Damien. The smells all blend together, and I inhale what we recognize as another day, a day living in denial, in pain, and without control. Another day with all my senses, and uniquely wishing it wasn’t.