[cockroach oil] by Elaine Chung
Photo by Aigerim Kalysheva on Unsplash
it was part of your life for so long, you never realized it was supposed to be disgusting
it was never disgusting to you. it is not disgusting now.
nighttime, taiwan, grandpa’s bedroom.
i clamber to the top bunk, feet feeling grimy from the tile floor—i scrape my soles on the varnished wood. my clothes are damp, a bit from my shower but mostly from sweat.
it reeks of heat, this greasy scent. musty too. the air is thick with it and my grandpa’s guttural, stuttering snores emanating from below me. it smells like sleep.
this odor clings to him and his room for so long, i cannot imagine his presence without it.
it stinks like my gruff grandpa and the hugs he never gave but the ones i returned anyways.
stinks like him and his green vest with the bag of assorted jellybeans in his breast pocket—precious as gems—stowed away and guarded for me.
baba listens to this all with a grimace. he tells me i am smelling cockroach oils. cockroaches are vermin. this is a disgusting thing.
the girls in elementary school shudder and cringe away from me. they glance at each other, she is abnormal. this is a disgusting thing.
perhaps i am strange, but i know better. i know the truth. i smelled it.
love is not just sweet with roses.
it can smell like cockroach too.
Elaine Chung is a freshman in college with a fiery enthusiasm for writing poetry and short fiction (always with a dollop of visceral descriptions). She dwells in the sleepy suburbs of Colorado, where she spends her time crawling through an unending stream of homework—which can only be expected with a Pre-Med major and two minors (because who is stopping me and why not). When she has time, she can be found doing Taekwondo, playing piano, and practicing Chinese.