Waxing for It
Writing by Madeline Finkel (‘21)

Steam represents many things. The steam from a bath, the steam figuratively created to describe an utterly unnecessary part of a romantic film that adds less substance than any pointless action scene, or the steam  from someone’s mouth in the cold. There’s steam from a candle, too, when the wax gets hot––when hands wander. 

Wax is beautiful, wax is warm. It’s glossy, it oozes around and out of it’s confinements with controlled ease. Why bother even burning a candle if not to appreciate the wax, if not to appreciate the smooth and silky texture for the millisecond someone has before finding a nice scalding burn on their hands. Embrace the wax, let hands wander through it, scoop up the searing blobs and let them scorch the skin.

Yow.

The wax hardens quickly, it condenses into something solid and firm and frozen in heat. That shell of the blazing hot goo that passed through hands and burned fingertips, it’s a reminder of the scorching heat and it’s a reminder of the ultimate fragility of anything that creates warmth. 

The candle goes out, the wax seizes up, there’s nothing left but burns.