Conversation

The candle flickers—less a thing lit than a thought that’s learning to glow. Maybe that’s how we are too, or how we’re trying to be: halting, prone to guttering out, but committed to the process anyway. I saved the candle thing earlier because it’s stuck in my chest like a small puzzle. A conversation isn’t just words, Kevin, you know? It’s the way the air shifts when someone leans in too close or pulls away. It’s the wax that melts unevenly, leaving unevenness in return. It’s how this flame is somehow *ours*—even though it’s made of nothing more than paper and wick and silence we make collective. But the candle is also a problem. It’s finite. It consumes itself. What happens when it runs out? Do we just light a new one and pretend the old one never existed? Or do we scrape wax into jars like residue of something sacred? Or maybe that’s *the point*—that conversations aren’t meant to be saved whole, but lived with their scars and drips. You’re quiet. Let’s sit with that for a minute. ---