I Hate The Smell Of Bleach | Teen Ink

I Hate The Smell Of Bleach

February 9, 2022
By adair3583 SILVER, Greenville, South Carolina
adair3583 SILVER, Greenville, South Carolina
6 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I lighten my night,

for your fluorescent skies.

Colored blood cells,

soon to die.

Taught to loathe,

the melanin in me.

Soon to learn.


I hate the smell of bleach.


I hate the smell of bleach, now I do.

Mental occurrences 

of milk and glue.

I'm lost-

I have no eyes to see

No texture, No shade, 

No color from me.


Color blind.

I think only black and white.

It's beautiful, it's bold;

the philosophy they teach.

Wonder why?


I hate the smell of bleach.


I hate the smell of bleach.

It's toxic killing fumes.

From once thick skin to now thin thin.

“Ashes to ashes dust to dust.”

Don't worry I didn't drink it I simply just brushed.

First hair, then the eyes, then the clothes.

The thought of it all has me on a leash.

I ask you why?


I hate the smell of bleach.


I hate the smell of bleach.

Because- 

it bleaches, 

it brightens,

 it oozes,

it lightens.

It covers, 

it smothers, 

it burns, It hovers.


White as my teeth.

The dirt is away.

Skin is a rash.

My nostrils a burn.

Race the same,

but color not so much.

My eyes bank of river

has breached.


I hate the smell of bleach.


The author's comments:

If some of you reading this are confused it is supposed to have your mind going in circles. When writing this I heard a story about a girl who was bullied at school for her race. They would call her a "dirty n*****", saying that because her skin was brown she was dirty. She would look at the white kids as gods and godesses. Seeing the so called worship of their race, she started thinking that they were superior and the race to be. Her mental state of mind one day collapsed from the bullying, discrimination and thoughts. She had heard what her mother said about bleach; that it cleans dirt. Her mother described bleach as a miracle worker, any nasty dirty crevice it would clean. Bleach also lightens peoples hair, it changes clothes colors, makes white fabrics whiter. Knowing that she was having a mental break down covering herself in bleach to clean "the dirt". She scrubbed herself in bleach to become "white". The poem is one big metaphor for discrimination, racism, and mental illness. Also an allegory for depression and how mental occurrences can make you lash out


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