Parosmia

Parosmia

I smell dead things
where no one else can.

I stick my head
in cupboards,
press my nose to the
baseboard, again,
but the smell 
skitters.
 
My children assure me
I am imagining things.
This is no 
assurance at all. 

If I am to smell ghosts,
let them be bathed
and perfumed.

Photo by Drew Tilk on Unsplash

The Prompt

Bodies are weird. Really weird. Mine has always had its quirks, and it grows more eccentric with the years, which is a euphemistic way of saying that I live with several chronic illnesses and various unexplained maladies. Following one of my many Covid infections, my smell went wonky, and for days, I smelled something dead and rotting. I tore my kitchen apart and found nothing, then noticed the smell migrating to the yard, the shower, the grocery store. This past week, the odiferous ghosts have returned. Perhaps the sore throat and congestion that recently swept our house was another Covid infection? In any case, my poem for today was an attempt to play with something that frankly feels rather unpleasant but also . . . funny. I find myself recalling the scene from The Sixth Sense where the little boys says “I see dead people,” except for I am the little boy, somberly confessing “I smell dead things.”

I assume you, like me, have a body. And if you’ve been in it for any time at all, it’s bound to have a quirk or two. A knee that tells you when rain is coming. A mole shaped like your country of origin, but now its borders are changing. An ear with a persistent, muffly echo, but only between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 PM. Or maybe ‘quirky’ is too soft of a word for the experience of living in your body. Maybe you live with chronic pain, severe disability, or a frightening diagnosis. All of these are part of the reality of having a body—though as a society, we tend to airbrush this fact.

For today’s prompt, take some time to notice ways in which your body differs from what some might tend to think of as ‘normal’ (which is, of course, a thing that exists only as a concept, not as a reality). Is there some nagging tweak or injury for which you’ve never found an explanation? A weird thing that happens when you’re short on sleep? A bodily party trick you like to pull out when things get dull—like bending into a pretzel shape or burping the lyrics to the White Album backwards?

Which, if any, of the unusual features of your body feel precious to you—things you wouldn’t trade even if you could? Does your body have quirks that feel amusing? How about embarrassing? Inconvenient? Exhausting? Isolating? Frightening? My own body dabbles in all of these categories.

It’s okay to let this poem be as light or dark as it wants to be—as light or dark as you want it to be. Poetry is pretzel-like—it can stretch and bend to hold almost anything. All bodies are welcome here, friends, as are all of your poems (as long as they don’t close doors on anyone else). I look forward to reading them!