night is when the ghosts come out
to play with the hours you clocked in
basking in the sun imagining ways
to overcome the fear that will box you in
from the sides you wish you could build
stepladders out of. the shadows on the wall
appear thicker and darker, like the confines
you narrowly escaped from only to find memories,
dry and stale, giving off a stench that used to smell
of the perfume you once wore.
the discarded bottle sits in the trash along with
the years spent walking down aisles looking for
similar scents.
the perfume i wear now smells of the time i've spent
building doorways out of the box, and strangely, of
sunlight and shadows on freshly mowed grass –
like customised petrichor.
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