Buy all the flowers, too.
I want a fancy candle. Things to smell and discern, maskless. What I want is a whole roomful of fancy candles.
I want a fancy candle. Things to smell and discern, maskless. What I want is a whole roomful of fancy candles.
I enter the shops of my neighborhood, doors opened to the sideways rain. I pick up the candles one-by-one, bring them closer to my face and inhale deeply. I can barely catch the scent. I weigh the wondering of how long will this $25 candle last. Will it be worth it? Will my partner hate the smell of of the hinoki forest that I love? Will Calgon take me away? I leave empty handed.
In the bathtub, covered in shaving cream, they shriek intermittently and it throws my nervous system into a fight response. I don’t get up. They’ll smell like the shaving cream for days.
We went to a restaurant last night for the first time since February. We (I) tell myself things like I don’t need to eat out and I don’t care that much and I don’t really miss it but when I took the first bite of the chicken liver mousse, I burst into tears because those things are lies lies lies. Weeping, I tried to explain why to my partner, whose fortieth birthday we were celebrating in an empty carriage house behind the main restaurant, while rain pummeled the skylights above. I wept because we all deserve to do something different. We all deserve to get out and away once in a while. To go and sit across from one another and find our way toward words again. It a weak muscle.
We all deserve a change.
Listen to Adrianne Lenker’s Instrumentals.
Buy yourself a non-fancy Mrs. Meyers candle like I did the week before; burn it to its wick’s end and when it’s obviously finished, try and try to light it once more time to get your money’s worth.
Or blow it all
and buy the one that’s $36
we’re all going to die anyway
so let’s make it beautiful.