“To smell of you with the people getting fierce…”
— Odysseas Elytis
I recently came across the poem “Monogram” by Nobel laureate Odysseas Elytis. It continues:
“Because they cannot stand the unfamiliar and the foreign.”
But for me, it wasn’t about them turning hostile; it’s about how I perceive them now, through your scent. I carry the unfamiliar inside me. So maybe it’s not them who’ve grown angry—maybe I’m the one who no longer fits.
Sometimes we feel people have grown angry, but it turns out we are the ones who are angry. The anger isn’t a reflection of them; it’s ours.
Consider instead:
“To wear of you with the people getting fierce”
“To walk of you with the people getting fierce”
“To talk of you with the people getting fierce”
“To smile of you with the people getting fierce”
To dress like you? To walk like you? To speak like you? To smile like you?
No. Not because your clothes don’t fit, not because your walk is too feminine or too masculine, not because your speech is too stiff or too playful, not because your smile is too perfect—but because of the scent of you absorbed in me.
The scent of you that I carry. Not a fragrance I can replicate, but a truth I recognize in myself.
Let people share their scents. Maybe we could even love some.
Let them smell like themselves. Because what we remember most isn’t always what someone said or how they looked, but how it felt to be near them—how their presence lingered long after they left.
Still, wear us if you like—you are more than welcome!
But never forget to smell like you. Your essence is never secondary to fashion.
We’re not in the business of trends; we’re in the business of truth worn beautifully.
-GF