Drugstore Perfume

Another wonderful prompt from Totally Optional Prompts -- click here to read the original, by Ted Kooser. I never really "got" him, thought he was pleasant enough, but this poem stuck in my head all week.

Drugstore Perfume

She stands in a yellowed bathroom, lathers
vanilla-scented moisturizer on freshly
shaved legs. Grits her teeth against
the sting of open nicks, watches red
bumps raise on white skin. In the smell
of vanilla mingled with the light
metallic tang of blood, she breathes in
1989, breathes in fluorescent pink clouds
of Love's Baby Soft and the white cotton
tampon threads, tangled in the black leather
recesses of her dirty purse. All
that's missing from this seventh grade
scenario are the blue gray clouds
of an eight grader's cigarette butt and
the burning desperation to be noticed
and not noticed, all at once. Wait,
that's still there, hiding beneath the blood.