Grandmother’s Perfume in Your Car on a Hot Day

Sit on the ground, head on the fish tank, in front of the space heater, but your feet are still cold. Above you are the photos of the game, your ticket, and his ticket. You want it gone, erased, he doesn't know how to deal with you. You are the lesser, the other. The music box on the shelf in front of you spills out a single note on occasion, when a note finally tenses enough to pass it's mark. The space heater makes your knuckles sting as you sit there, but your hands smell sweet. Chlorine and soap and cat hair. “You'll get along later” You don’t want later, it has been later. You are an adult and he lost his chance a long time ago, when he chose his favorite. You’re not jealous, you are angry because your words are an unceasing annoyance, and a simple request is met with his disdain.

Purge, purge it all, and only keep the happiest things. The rest is stagnant water. A cesspool of mediocrity and the smell of dust and old memories like the books that you'll never read. You’ll get to it later, later. Later. Later. Later. Later. You’ll get to it later because it is no longer important, so why is it here? Don’t go back and read because you might find a happy page amidst the clutter, and all those words will come back slowly and get stronger like the smell of your grandmother’s perfume in your car on a hot day. You can shampoo those leather seats all you want, but the smell is in the engine, it has made the oil and grease smell sweet. But that smell pulls away, and you rip that engine apart digging deeper and deeper, singeing your pure white t-shirt until you find that there was never any perfume and you are naked among that dismantled wreck. The hood snaps shut. And you are sitting on the ground, head on the fish tank, in front of the space heater with your cold feet. Your knuckles sting.

 

This poem is about: 
My family
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