She simply entered in search of something new; she believed a quick in-and-out run should be efficient enough.

All it took was the faint air of a sugar-cookie scented candle to bring her home; the sweet smell of holiday candles purchased long after the Christmas season, found on the fondly forgotten shelves of the Marshalls where her mother religiously spent her Saturdays.

Intrusive traces of vanilla bean transport her back to all the family Christmases lost to the bittersweet promise of the warmth of spring—belting out classic Christmas songs, waiting in anxious anticipation for the clock to show 8:00 am so she could begin her hurried descent down the stairs, her spirit emulating the bright, inviting glow of festive, multicolored lights, perched consummately on the pine. 

Holiday candles become stale, sorrowful, long-gone camaraderies of childhood Christmases adrift — wafting off the wick into an unknown and unwelcome abyss. Soon though, the memories will dull in full, riding upon the vanilla smoke to the empty promises of adulthood. 

Arriving home at twelve-noon every day; dining on cheap, dollar store plastic plates long tossed aside in welcome of grown-up ones, plates made of glass with flowers painted by a delicate hand.

Peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches were a necessity before partaking in an afternoon of laughs and naps, but peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches become distasteful after a multitude of years of learning to tolerate the crust. Laughter loses its joyous glimmer. Naps come few-and-far-between.

Bike rides into the unknown. Happy arms ready to envelop her closest friends into the secure hug she took so much pride in. Recesses spent wild—she unleashed her encapsulating, vivid spirit, burning bright for her fellow kindergarteners to admire. 

She was never alone. She could always feel the warmth of her fellow kindred spirits, remaining lit almost as if they owed it to one another—years of hop-scotch and inexorable games of playground hide-and-seek amounted to a debt more than any aggregate of money could constitute for. 

Now, a meager whiff of gingerbread suggests glimpses of friendships shattered after the escape from the confines of elementary school rules. The wax holding her together begins to melt. The impending shadow of endless homework assignments where long nights are spent behind the blue-radiance of a computer screen loom over her childhood utopia.

Pumpkin spice burns like a gas-lit fire as the constant altercations burn on. Disheartened, she makes her last attempts to fix the damage, but to no avail. She submisses to the angry flames of relationships overtaking. She is almost gone now; the flames take their last delectable taste of the wick-turned pathetic nub. 

She burns out. 

She never liked the Yankee Candle store anyway.