When death comes you can smell it

When death comes you can smell it

A stench so pure and rot
And sick
And sweet
And dirt

Creeps into your mind like a hand creeps in a glove

Black fingers twirling through your nostrils
Up your nose
Behind your eyes
And inward

It permeates
And congregates
And arranges itself into

Tiny

Little

Specks

That spread and spread
And spread and spread and spread
Until it’s all dark
And finished

.

They say nobody talks about it

You die before you realize what the smell is
Your own death approaching

They say you don’t expect it
For death to be a smell
And they’re right
I didn’t expect it at all

But one cold, nostalgic night
I smelled it

I caught a whiff of my doom

Not too soon
Just on time
I felt it whisper
It’s right
It’s here
It’s now

My head jerked left
Right
Whirled around

Eyes widened
As its cold, sugar fingers
Pricked the folds of my mind like icicles

I gasped
Stumbled forward
Lights stretched like a long exposure
Time dancing off my skull
Tip
Tap
Vision rushed forward
Out of focus
In focus

And I snapped back

A car whizzed past
The horn blaring
Other pedestrians yelled
Looked at me
I’d managed to get out of the way

.

The smell left my mind
My memory
So suddenly

Right afterwards
Like clockwork
It receded

I feel a void as large as death itself

I try to go back
To smell it again

Just to

Smell

I feel like I need it again
I feel like it wasn’t done
I didn’t get to what it really was
What it really is

.

I stand
Screaming into the wind
Cliffside

Waves crash against the rocks
My clothes whipping in the violence

Clouds painted orange
In spectacular sunset

I lean forward
I close my eyes
I breathe in
Through my nose

My brow furrows

It smells familiar

.

I lean further