Love smells different. Sometimes spontaneously, like fried pumpkin on the balcony. Sometimes - like stories stretched out in the family home. And sometimes you just walk down the street - and the smell stops your heart.

My first "smell" memory is a shower with my mother as a child. Soap steam, light droplets on the skin, my mother says "quiet, don't run away", and I feel protected no more, no less. This is not romance - this is the foundation of trust and warmth.

Then the smell of baked goods appeared in a warm apartment. My parents gave me pear pies - and when I remember them now, this is the smell that fills my chest. This is about "love" without words.

When I moved in alone, I noticed for the first time: my house smells like me. It's not always pleasant - unfinished business, cookies, or a slightly burnt dinner. But I love it. Because the smell of my house is me.

I discovered that love smells like:

- morning coffee and the pages of that very book that you open as if the day begins with it;

- skin in the sun after a walk - a warm and lively aroma, like a promise;

- the smell of clean linen when you lay your head on the pillow and understand that the day was not in vain.

Once I went into a bakery, and it smelled of fresh bread, yeast, butter. I met the barista's gaze, he smiled. A shiver ran through my whole body. Not because of romance, but because of how people sense each other through their surroundings.

I realized that smell is a language. And when someone smells of comfort nearby, they say: "I am the place where you feel good."

Today, returning home, I was so tired that even my thoughts crossed like a web. But when the door opened - and the smell of the laid out cinnamon breakfast that I left in the morning - I felt myself becoming myself again.

Love smells of me, you, us. It is the snoring of a cat at your feet, smoked pepper on the stove, a fresh breeze from the street. And to "hear" it, you don't need words.

If you want to understand what love is - don't look for it in flowers. Just close your eyes and breathe in. Maybe it's something you left somewhere - or something that someone has already given.

And I want to live where it smells like home. Where smells are memory, emotion, where they make the heart skip a beat. Because love is not just words. It is what remains on the skin. And in the heart.