Pumpkin Bonfire Candle

The candle has the right amount of spice and smoke. It’s from Bath & Body Works, like many of the gifts I bought in my youth for white elephants and birthday parties. It takes me to the memory of a corn maze of imperfect height. It’s my childhood friend’s 12th birthday, and we are at a farm party at dusk on All Saint’s Day. There’s hot cider, a hayride, and a provocative coed mix of guests. I feel nervous, there are popular kids from school laughing it up. It’s a funny thing, popularity, the way it snaked through my mind as a child, and its absence burrowed into my identity, the reminder of its shed skin sending shivers down my back to this day.