perfume

I still remember

how it began,

this lifelong obsession

with perfumes

a gift from my uncle

returning home

after two decades away

(he didn't even come back

to bury his mother, you see,

forever sending her letters home

unread, unopened)

a pack of five

exquisite French perfumes

I, barely 16,

hooked

time

I always thought

we would have

more time

that day, bleeding

all over the place,

washing everything

including ourselves

laughing at disaster

when we still could

you said these

were the memories

we'd take with us

I always thought

we would make more

but no

departures

let me leave you

like one would

a building

no turning back

to give it

second glances,

caress the curves

of its arches,

or linger in its doorways

hesitant, longing

let me leave you

like that,

effortlessly –

step out into the light

or the night

at my convenience

let me enter lives

like one enters

a train, coach, plane,

exit just as easily –

sometimes there is

some stumbling,

but one recovers

let me not leave

the way one does

a horrific accident

broken, bleeding,
barely alive
numb, trembling 
and find myself

relating the tale years later

a party trick

the audience, enraptured,

indulging in the sick pleasure

of reliving visceral pain

let me leave you

as I found you,

unthinkingly

serendipitously

directions

how could you not prepare

for the sorrow waiting at the 

second turn on the left?

you know these roads

all lead to heartbreak

how could you not know

the pain being amassed

at each stop in this journey

spooned into the sunsets

dished out at each door?

that barely two turns in,

the heart screws would slip off

you would fall in the mud

and not even know it,

staring stupidly at the sky

when did you stop listening

to the directions from inside?

how could you keep on

running those red lights?

I swear it never stops