Rain and Cigarettes

I came home smelling like rain and cigarette smoke and teenage love and my mother grabbed me and said "you better not fall in love" and so I smiled and touched your number that you had slipped in my pocket earlier that day when you said that you were 32 degrees Fahrenheit and I was the sun and I could melt you with my fingertips.

I came home smelling like a hurricane and tequila and lemonade and the lavender flower you tucked behind my ear the night before and the way your shirt hung off of me, lopsided, almost like we were. My mother said to me "you better not fall in love" and I twirled the cheap necklace between my fingers and I smiled to myself, the clasp was broken but I could still feel your cold fingers as you tickled my neck when you first put it on me.

I came home smelling like thunderstorms and fire and breakup songs and rose thorns and cheap vodka that would make me throw up blood and smudged makeup. And the girl you chose had laughed and said ti would always be her and never me. And my mother just looked at me with pity.

For four months I smelled like overcast drizzles and fog and cheap takeout pizza and dirty clothes and tear stains on pillows and broken songs about love. I hadn't left the house since you left. And my mother stayed outside my room to make sure I stayed alive through the night while I cried myself to sleep.

Three weeks later I met a boy who wasn't so cold and gave me some inner peace and offered me his shirt so I could sleep in and hold tight and smell his scent lingering on it when I missed him. And I came home smelling like fresh rain after a long drought and clean laundry and happy music and laughter. But I told myself I better not dare fall in love.

But I did anyways.

For nine months I came home smelling like a sense of security and everything safe and good and happy and hopeful. This boy stuck by my side and gave me the world and the stardust in his beautiful brown eyes melted my heart and his laugh was music to my ears. Some days I still come home smelling of gloomy weather and dragging feet and downcast stares avoiding the world. And my mother reminds me I fell in love and I smile because I fell hard and broke all my bones and he was there to pick them up for me.

And one day he came home smelling like pot and bourbon and nothing good and he told me he no longer loved me. And my mother looked on as I asked him to take his hoodies and love notes and good morning texts and all the memories we had made.

For one week I smelled like downpours and broken music and unkempt hair and shattered hopes and torn up love letters. It hit me then, what my mother had been warning me, that she had left out the last part of her cautionary advice. "Don't you fall in love... with anybody but yourself."

Now I smell of messy art and soft music and burning candles and forgotten hurts.