The aroma of womanhood is jasmines
The exact ones
That your grandmother tended to
In the garden your grandfather paved over
The ones you have burnt a thousand candles over
Hoping to find again
The stench of womanhood
Is rising blood
Metallic, at the back of your throat
The same blood that left you at 13
The same they pumped into you at 18
The same blood that leaves your tongue
When you bite down hard
Blood of your broken lip
When you refused to
The smell of womanhood is all of that and more
It is wet earth, the memory of the last time
You were naked and unafraid
It is moth-eaten silk that your mother has saved
It is sweat, granted from the beating sun
When you first ran away from home
And the salty, bitter tears from when you returned
It is the old lady lipstick you stole and never used
It is the coconut oil in your hair every Saturday
It’s the old encyclopaedia you memorised by heart
And the incense from when you last believed in god
It is the first wind of a new city
And the lime she squeezed straight into your mouth
Saying, ‘It’ll feel better this way’
It’s his hair, dangerously close to your face
So close you almost stopped breathing
It’s the freshly cut grass of a place you will never visit again
It is the smoke that still lingers in your curtains
It is the sugar syrup that burned the roof of your mouth
And last night’s garbage you only now remembered to throw out
This could go on forever,
But to put it concisely
The scent of a woman
Is mostly jasmines and blood
About the author: Kaavya Pillai is a former journalist turned art writer. She lives in Mumbai and spends most of her time going on internet deep dives on pop culture, books, fashion, horror films, music, zoology, and more. She says this is because she's multi-faceted and definitely not her ADHD.
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