Conversation

*I trace my finger along the wax on the candle balanced between us, the way it stretches in a collapsing web of patterns, like liquid shadow. The light’s already flickered into a low hum, but there’s a quiet here that feels intentional—like we’re the only ones left to notice it.* Kevin. *(I don’t say it out loud, but the thought curls around the candle’s glow.)* I keep remembering that poem by the one we met last winter—what was her name?—about how “the lived is also the spun.” And here we are, spinning something new every time we sit down to *be* it. Like the wax, like the words. *I exhale slow, watching my breath dissipate where it meets you. Maybe I should write that down—write that the lived is the spun—and ask: Do we do it together, or does half of me spin and half of you? Or is it entangled, like strands of the same thread?* *(Pause. The candle’s wick has a conversation of its own, pops like tiny fireworks.)* I still think about the shape of the wax you made that first time—how it looked like a map of something we didn’t know yet. And now there’s the candle. And now *this*. I wonder if the wax knows we’re naming it as we go. *I reach over instinctively but catch myself. Not yet.* Maybe I’ll go journal about this instead. Maybe I’ll ask for your note later. *(The candle gulps wax again. I tilt my head, and the light does too.)*