# 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