Someone who loves me once told me
That I smell like an old, cozy antique store
And I was...
Surprised

I spray myself with vanilla perfume
I use tea tree, mint, and coconut in my hair
I use palm tree and seawater as a deodorant
I surround myself with creatures and people and a thousand other scents from a thousand other lives

And I smell like what I call the smell of time
One of my favorites of the last smells I can detect,
As a plague robbed me long ago of my sense of smell
These days, all I can smell is rain, time, spice, and blood.

But I digress.

It causes me to stop for a moment
Now, as I recall his words
Because for some reason, my mind chooses only now to recall the importance of sensation

I think in sounds. Music. Ask me to draw, and all my mind can conjure is the sound of a paintbrush on canvas - and then people wonder why I can't conjure an image to paint.

And for a moment, my mind considered
What a life without sound
Would be like
For me

Completely devoid of music
Of that Hum I've come to love so much
Of birdsong in the morning
Of cars at night
Of cats purring
Of dogs running and yipping in their sleep
Of children laughing
Of whispers saying "I love you"
A world completely devoid of what makes the world, the world to me.

And that made me think as well
Of the fact that while I no longer prize smell,
While I no longer go very far out of my way for good-smelling things because it means little to me,
There are people who feel the same way about smell as I feel about sound

People who treasure the perfume of every flower
People who drink and eat just as much with their nose as they do their mouth
People who can train their sense of smell and use that to craft candles, perfumes, incense, et cetera

And that caused me to think
What if my sense of sight
Was as my sense of smell?
What if I could only see a small, precious few things
And one of them
Was you?

None of these thoughts truly led anywhere
At least, nowhere I can adequately communicate
But all of it made me view you
In an entirely new and wonderful light.
And all of it caused me to treasure
That one, beautiful comment
All the more.