Tonight's Poet Corner: Exploring The Netherworld

Exploring The Netherworld
by Belinda Roddie

It smells like rose water
and age
and evaporation
as I raise my thumb to my nostrils
breathe in slowly
so that my own odor wafts
its way into my body again
and settles like condensation
on a windshield

It smells like perfume
and hand sanitizer
like if someone choked
the life out of a flower
or pressured a meadow
to breathe out of its mouth
instead of its nose

You can smell it, too,
but you pretend you can't
because
if you recognized the cologne,
you would be triggered
and disturbed
and you would hide under
the bed until
the monster moved out