Holy Grail
Let’s workshop this poem about a woman endlessly chasing the holy grail high of her first violation, trapped in the haunting loop of trauma and desire.
scent of the day: Hyrax, by Zoologist.—Hyrax—a muskier sibling of Rien and Anubis (all three that bag-champa fog over dirty suede)—opens with a tarry-smoky leather (a result of creosotic castoreum, iodine-like saffron, mineralic hyraceum, and apothecary-like styrax, all four of which independently give leather impressions), a tarry smokey leather (a) lifted by the lemony sparkle of elemi and pink pepper and (b) soured by rose and civet (civet whose urinous-pickley quality, while never as extreme as something like Korous, comes out more as the tarry intensity recedes)—the overall result being a modern animalic leather fragrance extremely close to Anubis both in vintage aura and literal aroma, close enough that highlighting their hair-splitting differences lets us better understand each at higher resolution: (1) while both are unabashedly animalic with their embrace of castoreum and hyraceum (Anubis’s official pyramid lists neither notes, but that does not seem correct to my nose or to Liz Moore’s stated love for hyraceum and use of it in Salome), Hyrax reads as more feral and harsh and untamed (radiating not only a rawhide element of unwashed pelt, but also a urinous and sweaty and even animal-fat quality from the civet) whereas Anubis reads as more refined and inviting and intimate (especially given the delicate honey from the pink lotus and the narcotic sensuality from the Egyptian jasmine, a jasmine whose sweet florality blanaces its indolic depth); (2) while both evoke a dry and dusty ancient archeological atmosphere, Hyrax (more animalic and mineralic, its brassy bite one of the starkest single differences between the two scents) more easily evokes naturalistic images of fossilized bones and petrified animal secretions and musky pelt) whereas Anubis (more incensey and sooty) more easily evokes ceremonial images of sacred ash and brittle parchment and powdery suede; (3) while both have a boozy quality, Hyrax is sharper and more whiskey-driven (think: a barrel-aged peat whiskey, an acrid high-proof booze closer to the smoky-medicinality we get in Profumum Roma’s Fumidous) whereas Anubis is smoother and more liqueur-like (the immortelle and labdanum creating a dark syrupy spirit that feels more like an herbal digestif such as Benedictine); (4) while both have a velvety suede and an ambery glow, Hyrax feels more sharp and angular (this due in part to it leaning more in a more pissy mineralic direction) whereas Anubis feels smoother and gooier (this due in part to its syrupy immortelle, labdanum, and myrrh).
Holy Grail Fueled by a mean case of reenactment compulsion (one that, each year growing more ravenous, seems less a heartbreaking bid to “master the trauma” than—let us not kid ourselves—a hyperarousal kink), the rape victim haunts the seediest barstools in her skimpiest scraps of fabric (no panties to dampen the pheromonic updraft of boozy musk each time she shifts her thighs) until she finds herself, yes, sloshed again into such aggressive vulnerability that, reminiscent of Def-Comedy-Jam comedians roasting white people for nondysfunctional habits (hiking, camping, using timeouts in place of belts), she heckles the may-I-have-your-number charmers— her slurs (“Fuckin’ faggot!”) sandwiched between Pazuzu-grade cackles—for not jumping straight to yoking her out to the dumpster and working her as that cum-dump sheath (that three-holed invitation to violation) she sees in mirrors; for not screwing her lights out, no common mercy of lubrication spit (as if she were not already Miss Greasy Goo enough), only to end matters with a few orbital headbutts or vagina-clamping liver shots (something, anything)— such prayed-for violence, recited in silent incantation beneath the struggle theater of “Stop” and “No,” her only legitimate hope for a sip of that lost climax.