Rust and smoke smells like January
and seventeen. It's like spilling my brain
over headaches and putting it back
from memory—that smell, when I know
it's in the trash. Seventeen hurts like
virginity on a pair of panties I threw out.
January hurts like rust and smoke,
the last scent before gossip and opening
my legs to clean my soul of this body
pounding like a headache in clothes
still smelling like a memory, when I know
it's in the trash along with people and
their intentions.
Rinse and rub perfume on the past
until it smells like a woman is here
instead of a girl breaking apart her January
body for a shred of virginity to bathe and soak in.
Because sex is faking a headache to get
a break from seventeen smelling like trashy
rust and smoke.
YOU ARE READING
dirt & human
PoetryThis collection has the dirt for my grave and my soul for God but when it rains there's meaning for my muddy heart. (Some of the poems are older and published already, I moved them to this collection, so if you recognize a poem that's why.)
