A Scent’s Caress

Smell is an archive the body writes in silence.
It lingers, stains, and survives beyond touch — a trace that holds both pleasure and pain.

In A Scent’s Caress, I explore scent as a language of intimacy and survival. It speaks where words fracture, transforming trauma into breath, absence into presence. This ongoing performance asks what remains after the body is no longer seen, and whether healing can exist in something as ephemeral as air.

Excerpt

Intimacy did not unfold in his presence—
It first revealed itself to me when the air was emptied of him—
in the subtle traces left behind.

His scent lingers on my pillow—
An invisible caress,
Penetrating me through each inhalation—
Not just smell;
A memory…
A stain of his being.

In his fragrance I found the connection I was looking for.
One that didn’t demand a glimpse,
Touch,
Or even proximity.

His absence not a void but safety,
A space to sit with the remnants of him.

The scent weaved itself into my breath,
A tapestry of reciprocity,
Draping over my lungs,
Lacing through my bloodstream—
Dissipating into unspoken places—
Between my ribs,
The soft hollow of my diaphragm,
The unseen reaches of my being.

Scent in this work is not a metaphor — it is a medium. It dissolves the distance between audience and performer, inviting inhalation instead of observation. To breathe becomes an act of empathy; to exhale, a quiet surrender.

A Scent’s Caress is part of my ongoing research into sensory storytelling and feminist embodiment. I’m interested in how scent can carry memory, trauma, and desire — how it allows for stories to be told without words, without gaze, without touch. Through it, I hope to challenge the hierarchy of the senses and reclaim the body’s quieter forms of communication — the ones that can only be felt.