American Pipe Dream

a year of love letters

I never liked the smell of vanilla until I smelled it on you, dear A scent I can’t quite remember, and a sound I can’t unhear. A stretch of time so lost on me, yet I now yearn so to remember Never one to go quietly. My vanilla in December. There’s something lurking in the rafters here that makes me think of you It couldn’t be that love persists. Gone, I’m sure it’s true. I’m left here crying softly, after my heart you did dismember. I ache for you, my love, left here broken in November. I cannot escape the smell in these walls. It follows like a ghost. As something’s taken over me, my heart its pitiful host. I think of us then now and again, and our parting many times over. The smell in this house haunts me. My dear, lingering, since October. The faint musty smell of the books you’d read, for which you said you would return I now cover with the smell of smoke, as those beautiful things I burn I found your fire a comforting warmth, your dazzling spirit’s ember I fear I’ll never escape our world, extinguished in September. I never did take you, at the break of a morn, to see the sun rise, dear And now I stand alone in the light, wishing you were here. Love and hate rip at hy heart, but peace grows near I trust. I fear I’m reminiscing of something long gone by August. I rarely noticed the smell of leather, its dark and musty hues Until it came with each new day, the scent of your new shoes I know not what of yours to keep, or how you left or why, But some of you remains here, even in July.

cont. on pg. 5