sinus

the air feels like thin tobacco paper fragments, dried, soaked in week old coffee grounds. it is rich, pungent, sulfurous, aching with caffeine, nicotine, the smell of old rubber, the smell of new rubber and organic solvents. the air smells like it's been bleached by light and everything looks dry. perhaps I'm dehydrated. perhaps this sinus headache just places a muslin gauze of dessication in the air, but as my nostrils let up, I can swear it's not just me who is feeling this. it's in the air, I say, the air. a thin hoarfrost of fall dryness.