Darling if you say you love me, I will never leave.
Darkness, all surrounding never ending, consumed me starting
from my very soul, but I had no right to mind it.
My world changed from the moment I have met you, it was
alike a candle which has been lit, emitting gentle, golden, yet
still dim light, becoming warm, bright...dependend of this flame.
The darkness, has no way to lose I thought to myself, as I threw
my mind into the book which I was carefully reading.
After all, it is everywhere, patient and generous,
Just wating for its chances to get to ones soul
Under my feet as I desire to take a walk,
In my food which I must consume once I am feeling hungry,
In the wood, which gentle burns away by a campfire.
But seeing you, I have come to one realisation,
In its greatest strengh, relies its greatest weakness,
After all,  a sole candle is able to make it back off
But dear, love is way more than a candle,
It gave me a whole bright star and made it shine.

~ Umi

My mother is the reason why I obsessively buy books
But never read them.
She taught me to value learning, to seek knowledge and truth.
This afternoon she comes in carrying “Botany In A Day”
While all of the great classics of history sit dusty on the shelves.
(Speaking of shelves, and dusty, unopened things)
I bought her a sandy pink candle for her birthday.
She loves candles. But never buys them, never burns them.
One night I lit the flame - she came over to me:
“Why did you do that? The smell is going to give me a headache”
But you love candles, I say, if you love them why don’t you light them?
“I’m saving them.” For what? I ask, when is this special candle day?
“Angela, just leave the candle in the drawer, please.”
And I think that sentence sums up her entire relationship with me.

Ravished by love or violence, it bleeds.
Amply present in the sun’s morn glow.
Ignition of a candle’s fuse, it burns bright.
Nature’s leaved veins extend in its wake.
Boundless oceans hold it in their foamy arms.
Otherworldly bodies at night, it envelops.
Wind blows through its vibrant petals.

Beauty cannot be captured with one color alone.
It’s a spectrum.

A soft flame flickers,
azure wax forms torrid streams,
dripping down they go.

"You look like love,"
she said one night,
cold with the
whispers of winds
on old cobblestone
and hushed
footsteps
of snow-covered
boots.

He stopped
in his tracks,
the cherry of
his cigarette
pulsing
like the colors
of a spinning
satellite
lightyears away
from their newly-found
lives.

"What does love
look like?"
he asked,
syllables hanging
close to his face,
blue eyes
darting
from her lips
to her hands
and back again.

But he knew.
He knew from the first
time he shook her hand
and saw the
sweat glisten off her
brow,
and listened to her
listless stories
of how summer
never truly loved her,
that one day
he truly would.

She smiled,
lips cracking
from the dry air,

"It looks like an
overflowing sink,
fresh with bubbles
from soapy dishwater
left unattended
to waltz in the kitchen.

It looks like ice
cracking
to the sweet smoke
of scotch
and the divot
on the couch that
sinks our thighs
and the thought
of any afternoon plans
deep
in crevasses
we're both too sleepy
to crawl out of.

It looks like all
the things
the world
took from me
and promised
it would never give back,
but instead packaged
in a
candle
bright enough
to illuminate
all the dark places
and remind me
that even though
others have treated me
like a
flicker,
I'm truly a
flame."

See your gathered people,
Huddled in a house of stone
clad in bloom.
A chilled aura
lit by candle light.