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Tari La Fauci
BURNT Cookies
Ice Cream
FRESH fruits
DRY wood
CRISP cotton
Rain
Cigarettes
Vanilla
Today I thought about you - candle scents like your perfume. Everything smells like you.
it has been a year, but I still think about you every day. it is true what they say
it gets easier with time. the heavy feeling on my chest seems to lift a little bit
more every day. I feel like I can breathe again. my heart is healing slowly.
I’m back in the city we used to call our home and I passed the little bakery which smells like
burnt cookies and I thought of you. I remembered how your golden eyes would light up
breaking little pieces from the chocolate covered dough. How excited you would wait in
line. I went to the little corner shop with the blue sign looking for a candle. I found one that
smells like your perfume. For a second I felt your skin on mine again. holding me close.
being comfortably weird together. telling me stories about the moon and stars.
it is strange because I thought that coming back would hurt me. maybe even break me
again. but I love being here. it brings me closer to you and the beautiful memories we made
together. I’m not sad anymore because even though you left this world you are still here in
every piece of my occurrence. and I experience our memories again through the soft scents
you ingrained in my memory forever.
01
People romanticized by our nostalgia
I sometimes think about all the people I have crossed paths with in my tiny existence and
the scents they left me with. I don’t mean the ones close to me. I mean the stranger I shared
one smile with crossing the street. the old lady next to me wearing way too much perfume.
the young boy spilling his ice cream all over me on my way home. the women selling fresh
fruits out of her red car by the beach. the sweet waiter from the small town I forgot the name of. the guy telling me about his journal and dreams on a train ride. the small purple hair girl complaining about her boyfriend in the club toilet. I wonder if they ever think about me. I wonder if anyone ever thinks about the stranger, they only shared a few hours, minutes or seconds with.
do you?
Because I know I do. and even if I never see them again. I will always remember the scents they left me with. sweet berries, charcoaled seafood, cotton candy, dry wood, coffee, crisp cotton, sea salt, lemon zest, chestnut, mixed with their own scent of emotions, love, sadness, anger, warm feelings, cold sweat, the fresh air, rain, sun cream and cigarettes.
02
emotions change scents – when vanilla turns into fear and cigarettes into butterflies
my body is cold, I can still smell the burnt down candle, I’m sitting in a dark room with a tiny light shining way to bright, my head is turning, and I can’t stop thinking, I’m so scared, so scared, all I can smell is the soft note of vanilla and cinnamon that intensifies the dark feeling I carry inside my head, turning into overthinking, anxiety and panic. this is when vanilla turned into fear.
03
PART 1
I used to hate the smell of cigarettes. until it created a mosaic of the most vivid teenage
memories.
bad choices that make good stories
a first kiss
deep conversations with strangers
drunk holiday plans
hot bodies touching for the first time
soft lips
connecting with old friends
making new ones
dancing on tables
laughing all night
but it wasn’t until I met you that cigarettes turned into butterflies
PART 2
03
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