Where Your Name Becomes Perfume
It arrives like dawn through linen curtains,
soft gold spilling across bare shoulders,
the hush of honey warming in a spoon,
orange blossom catching in your hair.
It’s the musk of old love letters
kept in cedar drawers,
fresh figs split open on a marble slab,
dark chocolate melting slow between fingertips.
When you’re near, the air turns thick with
peony and worn leather,
with the green bite of crushed basil,
and the quiet smoke of a candle
you just blew out with a wish.
I find it on your pulse
amber and sandalwood,
sea spray tangled in cotton sheets,
the faint trace of rain on warm stone
moments after the sky lets go.
Passion doesn’t shout.
It folds itself into the crease of your palm,
into the space where your neck meets your jaw,
where my name, whispered once,
becomes a perfume I wear for days.
It follows me into crowded rooms,
a ghost of vanilla and ink,
threaded through elevator air
long after the doors forget you.
It’s apricots left in the sun,
their skins splitting with sweetness,
the hush of velvet brushed backwards,
your voice low, saying nothing
and meaning everything.
When night pulls its blanket over the city,
I find it again —
cardamom and clean skin,
the pages of a book you dog-eared,
rosewood and the promise
of breakfast we haven’t made yet.
Passion keeps its own time.
It lives in the half-second
your ring cools against my chest,
in the way steam rises from two mugs
and makes one weather.
So let the world keep its roses.
I’ll take the scent that stays —
fig leaf and dark honey,
the quiet ruin of your cologne
on my pillowcase,
telling me you’ll be back.
And so it settles, never leaving,
this scent that learned my name —
not fire that devours,
but embers that remember.
The room goes quiet,
the night goes gentle,
and in the dark I breathe you in:
soft gold, warm stone,
the one perfume
I never have to reach for,
because it’s already home.
©oriole_b
R