sometimes, when the wind picked up just right, he could smell it.

it smelled like a twisted grip on his reality, warping his sense of time and his perception; a loss of control and if he had just held on tighter or fought it harder it all would have been different. it wouldn't have been different, and he'd done more than enough fighting.

it smelled like pacing the halls all night and not being able to sleep through the light, days on end of wanting to leave but fear freezing him into place. like being surrounded by strangers when he just needed somebody to hear him screaming. something's wrong, something's wrong.

it smelled like nine-hundred-eighty miles from home, being alone in every way that counted and wandering lost inside his own mind. a narrow tunnel with only a single exit and though he could sense it it just couldn't be found and so he paced in circles and grasped at the air and was trapped without anything holding him in.

and the way a failure smelled was faint but rotten, and there were days when he wouldn't even be able to remember because he had it under control but he knew that every day he could take a step away or he could take a step closer. and some days it was walking down the street with his head held high and some days it was rocking back and forth in a stinking subway car but in his mind he was in the backseat of his mother's mini-van barreling through the four states that separated boston from chicago, child locks on the doors and he could still smell the wretched stench of hospital in his hair.

and the way a regret smelled was like a driving force, churning his stomach every time the easy way out crossed his path. he could call upon at will, and he could bathe in it and let it swirl around him in thick clouds. he could wrap himself in it like a security blanket; a barrier between he and himself because sabotage was always lingering just around the next corner.

and the way a past life smelled would stick with him, sticking in his nose like something foul, tainting the way everything tasted, and with every day it got further away, but then the wind would pick up and he could smell it again.