Lavender

• The smell of paint, the sticky sucking sound of wet paint rolled onto walls. This was a clean start, an adult room. Light and airy and fresh and mine.

• Flowers and candles and shampoos and soaps and dryer sheets. The same calming scent lingering like your lover’s goodbye kiss.

• A soft sweater on a lazy day, cozy and comfortable. Worn and washed too much--The edges are pilled and throughout the day you pick and pull off the little balls of fabric with a satisfying tug, leaving a trail of sweater crumbs in your wake.

• A two toned plastic phone case, bumped off a stone wall outside the Pantheon. You look down below in horror at it now in pieces. Your body is numb, heart replaced with ice cubes as you find a guard to retrieve it for you. She emerges like a soldier on your doorstep, ready to deliver the news of your husband’s death. But then she just plops the phone and case in your hands and somehow, your phone is unharmed. Sounds come back into focus and you feel your insides thawing as you snap the plastic shield back onto your phone, never before more grateful for its presence.

• Your kitten’s collar, hanging loosely on his little neck. Days later he slips it off with his paws and suddenly he looks naked. You find the collar and him and clip it back around his neck as if you’ve just given your sweetheart a necklace with your initial. You are mine; I am yours.