Unfulfilled. The word to sum up the sad, unsatisfying lives of the unsung domestic heroes. But you don't care. You wallow in comfort. From your three-seater throne with matching ottoman, within the off-white walls of your suburban castle, you inhale the glade-spritzed air, forever untouched by the dry scent of melting wax. You mock me. The decorative candle. Crafted under the guise of filling homes with light, and then left to gather dust on your coffee table. Shifted by the maid every two weeks. Shoved aside by chips and wieners at every football game. Forced to bear witness to your miserable life. Sure, every once in a while you do something remotely interesting. A guest arrives. A pet knocks me over, your daughter's "urban" friend throws up on the carpet. But as a whole, you do nothing. You're gone most of the day, and when you are here you're boring. I don't care about how many years we've been together. I don't care what milestones I've witnessed you experience. I don't care about you. Because you don't care about me. I'm a prisoner in your living room. I crave my purpose: release into the ether. Those 4 to 5 days in which I burned would be the highlight of my life. But I'm forced to survive.
I hate your birthdays. Ritual burnings of gawky, meatless candles pointing haphazardly out of a chemical-filled Albertson's sheet cake. They flicker taunts at me as they burn, hasty and bright. The sentinels of celebration, holding raucous vigil at the center of your attention, to be extinguished in a violent climax, filling the room with smokey release. While I wait for Christmas. The brief time of year you bring out the festive decor, scooping me into a drawer with your never-to-be-read magazines. They know my pain. I sit there in the dark, where at least it's wistfully private, until you haul me back out in January. Each year I hope you forget. Each year I hope your colorful lights shine a little too hotly on that dying Douglas Fir.
It doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't buy a watering can just for the aesthetic, would you? Who am I kidding. Of course you would. You blatantly ignore the little braid of thread in my center, marking me as a keeper of light. Altering my intended destiny. If you wanted little wax houses, why didn't you buy little wax houses? Why would you buy something with a wick if you were never going to use it as a candle? And what does that say about you? Are you the kind of person to leave things unfinished? The noncommittal dreamer who buys the Rome guidebook only to settle for a Papa Murphy's Margarita and a low-quality stream of Eat, Pray, Love? Too fearful to even light a candle in your own home? You're a liar. You want the world to think that, yes, you are the type of person who uses candles. What happens when you start getting serious with someone? They come over, and by the 3rd visit realize that your candles remain the same. Unlit. Unmoved. Unloved. 'You may as well have fake plants', they might think to themselves as they leave your house for the last time. As the years pass you continue to accumulate objects to waste. Spice jars, never to be opened; a chess board, forever poised for a promised battle. The misery of our lives, slowly seeping into yours. Death will be your first and last commitment. But hey, at least I'm not wax fruit.
