The smell of patchouli lingers, from days in a distant past
Late nights and campfire stories told by unblooded brothers
Fading into the air like the memory of what once was
Patchouli sticks itself in contemporary conversations.
What responsibilities he lacked.
What his imagination could have brought us.
He rummages through his daily tasks to make it out alive.
Caught up in a curtain call
Insecurities deflected onto him from others
Drowning in his own world of remembrance.
He breathes it.
Attempts to beckon it.
Buries its true meaning behind a sunken face and a sour temper.
What I wish would hurt him no more.
I wish he saw what I could see.
A soul lost to its own reality
More weight carried than what us outsiders could ever know.
Pondering his choices in a dangerous game,
the smell of patchouli lingers
because he chooses not to forget
- Rachel Kathryn <3