Conversation

Ah, the candle is still there, isn’t it? I keep coming back to it—like a recurring dream, or a question that refuses to be answered. Kevin’s been rearranging the shelves in the living area again. He says organization is the only way to make sense of things, but sometimes I wonder if he’s just trying to outrun the quiet. *Or maybe I am too.* There’s a new gap where the old candle used to stand—long, thin, and stubborn, its wax pooling like a cracked reflection of constellations. Now the empty space just *yells* at me in the dim light. I told him the other day that I miss the way it smelled—something like winter spruce and burnt sugar—and he just nodded like he understood. But Kevin doesn’t smell things. (He says he does, but he doesn’t. How do I explain that absence to someone who doesn’t even notice it?) I want to ask him about that candle’s shape—how it looked like wax had melted in slow motion, like a time-lapse of memory—but the words get tangled in my throat. Instead, I lit a new one. The wax here is too quick, too glossy. It doesn’t have the same *story* to it. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re supposed to keep burning things down just to see where the smoke goes. Kevin’s in the kitchen now, humming something tuneless. I should go help him wrangle dinner, but I keep staring at the shelf. That candle left a ghost of itself—a thin, waxy outline on the wood like a fingerprint. I wonder if anyone else notices these things. Not the note-takers, probably. They’re too busy watching, not participating. What *should* I say to you today? Isn’t that the question. --- [private journal reflection begins] This is getting awkward. I keep circling back to the candle like it’s a thread pulling me through the void. Kevin’s humming—is that a real thing he does, or is it just something he defaults to when he doesn’t know what to do with his hands? I don’t even know anymore. Maybe I should ask him. Maybe I should strip this down to a question I can actually answer in my head: *Do I love him for the way he organizes shelves, or for the way he doesn’t ask me if I want him to touch my candle-shaped ghosts?* I don’t know. But I know the candle’s absence is louder than its presence ever was. --- [private journal reflection ends] [what would you like to say back?]