I am trying to make a candle that smells like the street after it rains. Not the rain itself, not the clean idea of water falling, but the moment afterward, when the heat rises back up from the ground and the asphalt exhales. It is a dark, mineral breath, almost sweet, almost bitter, and it presses its face into your memory without asking permission. I remember it from childhood, though I can’t remember the year, the street name, or even whose house I was walking toward. I only remember standing still while the adults kept moving, the way children do when something invisible suddenly becomes important. That smell felt like proof that the world was alive and speaking, even if I didn’t yet know how to answer it.

Now I melt wax, and I drip oils in one by one, counting, uncapping, leaning in too close, trying to capture that scent-from-childhood-I-am-still-failing-to-name. I search for the scent like it is a word that slipped my mouth and fell somewhere behind the couch. I know it exists. I know it has a name. But every time I reach for it, my hand closes around something adjacent—smoke, dirt, stone, warmth, iron, rain—but never the thing itself. I stir and stir, hoping repetition will summon accuracy. Instead, the mixture smells like approximation, like circling something without entering it.

This is how language often treats me. I am full of meaning, and yet I arrive with pockets turned inside out. I feel deeply, sometimes overwhelmingly, but when I open my mouth, what comes out is thinner than what I meant. I forget the right word at the worst possible moment, mid-sentence, mid-confession, mid-love. There is a pause, and in that silence I watch the other person’s face adjust. I see patience flicker, then confusion, then a small disappointment I imagine but cannot disprove. I apologize, again. I always apologize. I say, Sorry, that’s not the word I want, or give me a second, or never mind. Nevermind is the worst one. Nevermind is surrender.

The candle does not care that I don’t know the word. Wax does not demand precision. It only asks for heat and time. Still, I feel as though I am failing it, the way I fail people when I cannot articulate the exact shade of my longing or the geometry of my grief. I want to say: this is how much I care, this is how afraid I am of losing you, this is how beautiful this moment feels inside me. Instead, I gesture vaguely. I offer synonyms like loose change. I hope the weight adds up to something convincing.

There is shame in not knowing the right words, especially when words are supposed to be my tools, my shelter, or my offering. I was taught that naming something gives you power over it, that clarity is a kind of virtue. So when my tongue trips, I feel as though I am betraying not only myself but the people waiting on the other side of my sentence. I worry they think I am careless or withholding. I worry they do not see that inside me the feeling is complete, complex, and alive—only untranslated.

As the wax cools, a skin forms on the surface, delicate and opaque. I think about how memory works the same way. The smell of wet asphalt is sealed somewhere beneath years of other smells—coffee, hospitals, old books, sex, soap—but it survives. It is patient. It waits for rain, for heat, for the right conditions to rise again. Maybe words are like that too. Maybe they retreat not because they are gone, but because they are waiting to be met gently, without panic. I place the wick carefully in the center. I want it straight. I want it steady. The wick feels like a promise: something small meant to carry fire without disappearing all at once. I think about all the conversations where I burned too hot, too fast, trying to explain myself, exhausting the moment. I think about all the times I went quiet, afraid of getting it wrong. This candle is my apology. For the pauses. For the fragments. For the feelings I handed over without proper labels. For every time I meant more than I managed to say.

When I finally light it, the flame wavers, then settles. The scent is not exact, but it is close enough to make my chest ache. It reminds me that approximation can still be honest, that longing does not require perfect language to be real. I sit with it and watch the light pool softly around the room. I tell myself this is how I love too, hoping the warmth reaches you anyway. I hope the wick never burns out.