Sam Glaspy's Poetry

3/2/2021- My Favorite Smells

-Dusty old antique stores. There's one in Georgia where I'm friends with the lady who owns the place. We talk about photography, restoration, and our affinity for old hats.

-The ink of a new comic book. It reminds me of reading The Umbrella Academy for the first time, and the whole world that opened up for me.

-The smell of old books as well. I used to go to a bookstore in Georgia owned by a punk guy in his late twenties. He had a shop cat, named Cormac McKitty. It shut down a few years ago, and as far as I can tell, all traces of its existence online are gone. I bought my first Harry Potter book from him. I was ten cents short and he let me have it. I still have the bookmark with his cat on it I got that day.

-Nana's laundry. Her house always smells so good. It's very strong, and latches onto your clothes and hair like smoke. Her house has been a safe haven my whole life. I have so many memories tied to that smell, like the last day before I moved to Florida, sitting on the porch and watching the bats every summer, and sitting on tables eating cereal at ungodly hours.

-Nana's Marlboro Mellow cigarettes. She always smells a little like smoke, and when we have our existentialist conversations, she always has a cigarette in hand. It just reminds me of being a kid and a depressed adolescent at the same time.

-Honeysuckle, because of the bush we used to have in the back yard and all the hours I spent drinking the little drops of sweetness from the flowers.

-The way the streets used to smell at the end of spring at the beginning of quarantine, when I'd go for walks while listening to Frank Iero and Siouxie and the Banshees.

-The smell of Six Flags Over Georgia in the summer. A mix of asphalt and funnel cake. I miss Six Flags, with all the fair games that I always beat everyone at and the big coasters I used to go on purely for the adrenaline. Now, my impulses make me want to feel that adrenaline again, but I don't know where to find it.

-Granny's house before it got taken over by her feral dogs who piss all over the floor. The smell reminds me of being little and playing with Leo, and then when he got depressed, my little cousins instead. Eventually, Leo was okay enough for us to be best friends again. We would jump on the trampoline in the rain and make up games on the swing set. We would race each other in the pool and run barefoot through the grass under the orange and plum trees. I haven't done that in years.

-The house of my best childhood friends from Georgia. I'm glad we still talk on our birthdays and in the summer. Sometimes I'll go over to their house and we'll do karaoke at three in the morning to the country songs our parents listened to when we were little, that we somehow remember all the words to.

-Thee smell of the soap I used when I first got depressed. I remember sitting on the floor of the shower, too depressed to stand, just enjoying the warmth and Twenty Øne Piløts' Vessel album playing in the background. The iconic lyric videos that went with the songs are so nostalgic as well.

-The smell of my first concert. It was Palaye Royale, and it was held at a small bar for no more than 150 people. It was so magical to see the artists that changed my world so close and personal.

-Two of my friends have very distinctive nice smells. I honestly don't know how to describe them, but I like it.

-The art museum downtown. I've spent many afternoons there looking at the different exhibits. I don't know why, but the old building mixed with the oil paint is just embedded in my memory.

-My mom's office in our old house. She kept a bag of peppermints under her desk that I would steal, and it smelled kind of like a minty post office in there. I spent hours upon hours rewatching The Lion King on VHS.

That's about it. My whole life story through smells. (This all started as a long winded text, by the way)