Stream of consciousness, because I have no time to write anything else these days


My roommate is playing an album by some group called Houses. I’ve never heard of them before, but I like their music. It fits my mood tonight. There is a candle flickering to my left, a candle that we are not supposed to have in the apartment because it is a fire hazard. Which reminds me, I should put the battery back in our fire alarm; I accidentally set off the alarm with a hot shower the other day and I panicked because I thought someone would come in while I was still in my bath towel so I climbed onto the bureau, reached up, and yanked the battery out.

I admire this little candle – how it burns and burns with all its unfaltering might, all the while shrinking beneath its flame, drowning in its own melted wax. I wonder how it feels to be the cause of your own destruction, to consume your very self.

I wonder if, in some subtle way, I am not unlike the sad candle which burns itself away in my modest apartment. I am still young, I know, but what if these years melt away before I have done all that I have set out to do? I would like to go to Paris and watch the city’s reflection float across the surface of the river Seine. I want to truly understand why F = ma, and I want to study the philosophy of science, how Ptolemy’s ideas evolved into those of Copernicus, and Kepler, and if Newton really sat under an apple tree when he came up with the theory of gravity. I want to write my own song, I want to learn guitar, and I want perform Clair de Lune flawlessly. I want to go to Mauna Kea in Hawaii and look at the stars; I want to see an aurora in real life. I want to love someone, and be loved. I want to open a coffee shop, or a bakery, with a fireplace and classy art on the walls and antique poetry books on almost-dusty shelves. I want to go on a road trip without even bothering to check if I have enough gas in the tank, and I want to go hiking and canoeing and whale watching in Maine and ride with sled dogs in Alaska. I want to live in New York City, and live in California, and I want to ride a horse without the saddle and go so fast that I almost fall off. I want to fly into outer space.

There is a bowl of leftover pasta in the fridge, except I doubt I’ll ever eat it because I couldn't find any plastic wrap so I will probably get hungry in a few hours, look at the uncovered pasta in the fridge dubiously, and throw it away. I hope I don’t get blown out before my passion is done burning, although I do like the smell right after you put a candle out. It’s like burned roses, rusty fragrance. I’m going to blow the candle out now and go to sleep.