These are the scents that make no sense, but when inhaled, teleport me back to a certain time and place, to a certain someone’s face, in a different sphere that can not be erased.

Shortcakes baking

Zinc on a summers day

Freshly cut grass

Dove deodorant

Bittu bush tracks to the beach

Old Spice

Hubbabubba

Damp clothes

Moldy cars

Little black dress

Ocean skin

Pineapple wax

Old text books

Excessively chlorinated swimming pools

These are the scents of the smallest things
The most insignificant things
The scents that fail to explain anything
They just have a place under your skin
And over the years
Somehow begin to become all that there is
Reminding you of the tiny things

Moth balls

Babydoll

Aeroguard

Garlic rice

Plastic Christmas trees

Christmas beetles

Cold rain on warm bitumen

Worn leather on hired bowling shoes

Char grilled sewers

Fallen frangipanis

Strawberry lip balm

Clothes out of a dryer

Dried rose petals

There is no sense in these scents
A mere catalogue of the smaller things
But somehow with time
They converge to mean everything