You taught me the scent of a man.

It was something I had never learned to recognize back home.
There were many of them, always sweating in the rice fields,
heaving nets from the ocean onto shore as one.
I was the oldest of our three, a farmer for a father, for a mother too.
They, too, sweat in the fields of Jaru even on the hottest days.

I thought that was simply it. What men smelled like. Sweat.

Then there was your hand gently guiding my elbow upward.
Your stomach to my back as you taught me how to hold my bow.
You told me I needed more muscle, scorning, disappointed.
Warm breath on my ear that made my stomach knot and quiver.
I had never known that feeling.

Your smell wasn't simply of sweat-
it was of something that made my flesh prickle,
those fine hairs on my arms stand upright.
It was like a cologne, yet not. Stronger. Embedded.

I understood without ever understanding.
This.
This is the scent of a man.
The secret I had always been too young and naive to understand.
When my mother would simply chuckle at me with a twinkle in her eye
when I said the young lad down the way was quite handsome.

Or when his brother asked me to dance.
He is too short, I claimed
He will grow, she promised.
Things will change when he becomes a man.

Perhaps I should visit home.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 14th of Sapiarch, in the year 20 AC.