Lilac
Quick note that this was a prompt given at a writing seminar. Pick a scent and an emotion and write about it. I chose lilacs because they’re my favorite flower. Initially, I was going to write about grief, but things got spicy so the emotion ended up being ecstasy.
Lilac. The color of the grapes that grew on the vines along the fence line.
The popping sound they made when we’d pull them off and bite down on the crunch. The sweet and sour competing like waves across our tongues.
I miss those days like I miss the soft petals of lilacs brushing against my skin. You’d pull them straight from the bush, twigs snapping and aching against your strength.
I’d lie down in the warm spring grass, my bare feet clenching against the damp soil, that had moistened by the spring rain.
You always laid with me, softly brushing the petals across my freckled skin. Nose. Cheeks. Lips. The lips you had kissed so many times before.
I’d breathe in those petals, breathe them in like they’d be the last thing I would ever smell. And I’d breathe you in, too. Your oaky cologne that hit me between my legs every time you wore it, the scents tangling, coating every part of me.
The petals drifting lower, across my collar bones that peeked out from the top of my shirt. Down my stomach, circling my navel.
The tickle I felt as your fingertips stretched out playfully, past the stem, brushing ever so slightly against my bare thighs until your palm, along with those petals, would cup the length of me, the hardness between my legs neither of us could ignore.
That smell. That glorious smell.
Lilac and oak.
Lips and limbs, teeth and tongue.
Every part of me lit up like the spring sun that warmed the grass and made the grapes and lilacs grow.
Pounding hearts, pounding together.
Always together.
God, how I love lilacs.
Photo by Olha Suntsova on Unsplash