Cliché as it may be, but I think you smell of books

I often find myself wondering what you smelled like.

It is a bit peculiar, to say the least, but I have science to justify my fascination. You see, there are countless studies that show the link between one’s sense of smell and one’s memory; that a person who has full olfactory function is capable of retrieving information stored in the hippocampus. Scents are the only sensations that pass through the direct path where emotions are processed to where learning and memory formation takes place. 

(And they say science can’t be poetic, but what’s more romantic than that?)

I’m quite fond of absorbing my environment. I sit and I observe places and people, carefully detailing particulars by taking notes that I keep in a rolodex that only exists in the deepest trenches of my mind. Some might say it is calculating and strategic, a very INTJ trait to say the least. But that’s just because many think that I’m only capable of weaponising tenderness since I have, for countless of times, shown ineptness in processing emotions. In my defence, I do ruminate quite often. In an empty room with Gnossienne reverberating through the walls is where I’m most comfortable. I do process. I’m just averse to feeling what needs to be felt. 

But that is besides the point, or maybe a topic for another time. For now, all that I desire is to learn about the cacophony of fragrance notes that constitute your overall scent. Because I know that just like the cool sea breeze that tickles my face in the summer, whatever moment that I will have with you will be taken away as fast as gravity pulls an apple from a tree. Your attention on me is ephemeral, and I should capture all that I can in that instance for safekeeping.

I think you’d smell like comfort; warm and earthy, like the smell of the little herb nursery my mother keeps at the window sill in our kitchen. There would be hints of musk, like the leather bound books kept in the library of my dad’s home office. If I’m lucky, I’d get a whiff of the third cup of coffee you’ve taken since you started your morning. And maybe, if the gods were to favour me that day, my overly sensitive nose would catch the natural ambrosia your masculinity oozes. You are, after all, a fine specimen of a human being, biologically speaking.

I would like to get acquainted with your scent one day, so that when I’m in a state between lucidity and unconsciousness, or just when I’m feeling particularly melancholic, I’d be able to retrieve my memory of you and relive the time I spent with the man who once held the entirety of my heart (without him knowing).