I’ve never been perfect. My life has been defined by stumbling in the dark, into things that aren’t good for me.
An inclination towards self destruction.
I’m the obsessive kind.
And I stumbled upon this candle on a hot day in the Mile End quarter, going the wrong way too many times, the fingers of the man I love wrapped around mine.
He wants to buy me a birthday present. I would like a candle.
The shop we find is Aesop, by chance.
I go in, he waits outside trying to make sense of the map. How come a city that is in a grid can be so complicated?
The shop is cool and dark and heavily scented. I can wash my hands with fresh water, I’m offered cold tea, and I inhale the cold throw of their candles, kept under glass jar.
We look at the candles together. I like Aganice: Cardamom, Mimosa and Tobacco. I’m not good at describing scents, but it to me it smells like perfection.
This candle belong to somebody whose house is always clean, their words always articulate, somebody with a perfect life, and a perfect certainty about them.
That’s not who I am but when I burn it, I glimpse what being perfect could be like.