Basement Air

That smell, all of it, rose up from the boxes

as we hauled them, grunting, from the storage unit.

Damp concrete, a hint of mildewed dreams,

old cardboard, and that specific, metallic tang

of something long forgotten, rusting slow.

It hit me, pulled me right back,

to my aunt's house, the cool, dark space

where I'd been sent, grounded for some petty crime.

Dust motes danced in the single bare bulb's glare,

and I'd sit there, reading paperback romances,

the smell of old laundry and something vaguely dead

clinging to the air, to my skin.

That smell meant shame, meant waiting,

meant things put away because they weren't good enough,

or just hadn't found their place yet.

It still does.