The Immortality Project Hits A Snag

I’m not planning on dying
yet — indeed, at all, if I
can help it.  I plan to
cast myself in hollow resin,
build robotic pumps and filters
for the insides,
and stay hooked into the grid
in lieu of having a brain,
memories, human
connection.

I can exist, I think,
without eyes for new beauty
and ears for novel sounds —
I’ve seen and heard quite enough,
thank you.  Food’s
a distraction and a crutch,
so here’s an unregretted good bye
to taste, and 
what my skin has taught me
has been mostly treacherous.

But, oh, the nose —

I don’t know how to 
lose that forever;
I don’t know
how to live
without these scents
that drag up specifics,
that cause recoil and 
draw me into events
and people I would not 
have otherwise known:

a red onion left too long on a plate.
The vague odor of the trash.
The neck after swimming.
The firepit next door.

How shall I set myself free
of these
without knowing the ends
of the stories?