waste.

Beauty is high maintenance. She is demanding, fickle and temperamental. She can be strong or weak. If you work with her and tend to her fragile needs, she will reward you. If, however, you decide to ignore her, you can lose her forever. There is nothing more heartbreaking to me than beauty wasted. How wonderful that a little bit of extra care and attention, that a small amount of grooming, can transform a face, a body, a person. The confidence you can receive from swapping your worn out loafers for a pair of shiny black stilettos is astounding. By elevating in inches you elevate in status. Your walk changes, your whole body changes, and with it so does your impression of yourself. Stop denying yourself the privilege of being beautiful! Make your hair look like it has seen a hairbrush and your skin feel as though it is akin to satin. With just a small thought for your appearance you can transform everything around you. Whether we want it to be or not, beauty is of the utmost importance to us all. It is an instantaneous reaction. It is an instinct. Men and women; you are equally guilty. To turn from your beauty is self destructive. To knowingly and consciously deny beauty through sloth or indifference is an unforgivable and utter waste. Beauty is a gift; do not squander it.

Layers of black

Anger or melancholy prompt a more frequent use of liquid eyeliner and dark shades of lipstick. I smear them on, layer upon layer upon layer. With this thick armour I am now strong, dangerous, invincible. I meander through the flesh packed into the tunnels of the London Underground with one leather-gloved hand nestled in my pocket. The sound of my stilettos hitting the ground precede my arrival on the platform. We're packed into the carriages like sardines. We shove, we push, we jostle each other. Sometimes I smile. Sometimes I sneer. Sometimes my face is made of stone. It's 9am, and my eyes are in mourning.

Red Velvet Pleats

The day I met you, you were all in black,

Your heart gently bleeding and nailed to a plaque,

Singing butterflies tangled each thought

And clouded in mist the words we sought.

 

A home of paper, white paint and pain,

We’d dance on the stairs and hide tears in the rain,

With fingernails we’d scratch at textured pages

And rule from soaring gilded cages.

You scattered my name to cover your woes

And pierced my flesh with a single red rose,

You shattered your skull in search of a muse

And I ensnared your wrists in a hundred tattoos.

We’d ignite on cream paper, leather-bound,

When we screamed the others didn’t hear a sound,

My hand in yours amongst heart-shaped eyes,

Destroying and obliterating all we despised.

I saw only beauty in your sinister designs,

Your jerky scrawl, your ethereal lines,

The red velvet pleats that enveloped your form

Seemed to reveal that you’d never conform.

Suits and shirts, you were sharp and defined,

Presentable, polite, though sadistically inclined,

But you’d close your eyes and in dreams you’d drown,

Your pleats unfurling and falling down.

I stitched them up with bleeding cries

Until your armour began to rise,

But when I needed you here to stay,

You gathered your pleats and ran away.

A dozen letters, sealed and signed

That in your hurry you left behind,

A jagged, red figure glaring, betrayed,

And a scrap of velvet which has begun to fade…

you mean nothing to me, oh Vienna...

The feeling is gone, only you and I,
I means nothing to me,
This means nothing to me...

This is the moment when you know,
That you told her that you love her but you don't,
You touch her skin, and then you think
That she is beautiful, but she don't mean a thing to me,
No, she don't mean a thing to me.

The image is gone, only you and I,
It means nothing to me,
Oh, this means nothing to me...

Softly, deftly, music shall caress you,
Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you,
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness that you know you cannot fight,
The darkness of the music of the night.

The music is weaving,
Haunting notes, pizzicato strings,
The rhythm is calling...

From D to B flat my fingers skip and run, mimicking the tumble of thoughts and words and my mind so highly strung...

You're gonna catch a cold, from the ice inside your soul...

Carefully, very carefully, I step out into the rain. I have no coat, I have no umbrella. The water seeps into my collar. I keep my head down, but for some reason my mascara has run. Angrily, I brush it away with the back of my hand, tarnishing the sleeve of your cream jumper with a long, ugly, jagged black line. Peeking through wet strands of hair my eyes remain vacant and glassy.

The angel asked her what her name was,
She said; "I have none."
Then he asked; "How can this be?"
"My father never gave me one."

I make out the blurry outline of a tall, dark figure. One arm is outstretched, holding a paper cup towards me. I hover, inch forward then take a step back, undecided. My eyes scan the ring around my feet. A circle made of chalk. I put my hands up and outwards. The walls of the ring push back, restraining me. I walk around it like a caged animal, restless and agitated.

Every time I close my eyes,
It's like a dark paradise...

I begin to notice another figure standing to my left. Hands in pockets, slowly walking towards me and my ring. I feel a smile spread its way across my face. Tentatively, I touch it with the tips of my fingers. I like it. My smile widens as the figure draws nearer.

But you fit me better than my favourite sweater, and I know
That love is mean, and love hurts,
But I still remember the day we met in December, oh baby...

As his boots beat the ground, I start to make out a soft tinkling. Strange. My eyes refocus, curiosity kindled. His pockets have holes in them. His hands are in his pockets and they have holes in them. Little shiny objects are slowly falling to the ground from the holes in his pockets. I lean forward to see what they are and instandly recoil, hitting the wall of my ring and falling to the ground. He has holes in his pockets where his hands are and they're spilling glass hearts. Glass hearts falling and shattering to the ground. The crunch of them disintegrating under his boots penetrates the walls of my protective shell and reverberates in amplified splendour. I lift my hands to my face to wipe the smile off. I do not like it anymore. Frantically I pace my precious enclosure, occasionally putting my palms up to assure myself that the walls are still there.

I will love you til the end of time,
I would wait a million years,
Promise you'll remember that you're mine,
Baby can you see through the tears?

"It's getting cold." The dark figure holds the cup out to me. He takes a few steps forward.

Shatter. Splinter. Split. Smash. Break. Fall. Crash. Collide. Crack. Clatter. But no, they can't enter.

I want more chalk. I want more chalk. Make the circle smaller, thicker, deeper.

Cold. Crash. Cold. Smash.

A glass heart shatters to the ground almost at my feet. Involuntarily I take a step back and smudge the chalk. I go dizzy. My little safe cirle, my warm protective ring is broken. It is broken.

Cold. Broken. Cold. Crash.

Blurring across my vision, another figure slowly steps forward. A little stooped, with his arms outstretched. I look at the broken line then back at his face. He is alright. He knows how to make it better.

Cold. Crash. Cold. Smash.

Lurching forward I leave my precious circle and run to him. He wraps one arm around my back and the other around my head, covering my ears. He presses my face into his chest so I can't see. He holds me very tight but it is not unpleasant. Soon my erratic breathing steadies, and I know that the voices, the shattering hearts, the rain, the ring and the blurry figures have gone. Loosening his hold, we look at eachother. My Immortal. I know you cannot stay, and I must go. You are not mine, and I am not yours, but we are both forever. We are always, and ever, forever.

As you begin to fade, I turn away from you and run. Soon the rain is falling again. Seeping into my collar, staining my cheeks black.

You're gonna catch a cold, from the ice inside your soul...

A trail of shattered dreams and glass hearts between my lips and yours...

00:00

Midnight. Princesses are sleeping soundly but I'm having a ball. I may not have glass slippers but my black stilettos gaze up at me, shameless. Still beautiful. Still a pair. I would never leave a shoe behind. Silly Cinders. I re-apply a thick layer of liquid eyeliner and lean forward to seal my reflection with a big double-decker-red kiss. Christian Dior is my dark angel tonight, his Midnight Poison sinks gloriously into my flesh. My eyes are black as coal. I smile coyly to myself before draining my glass and letting it smash in the sink. Slinking across the dancefloor I grab two champagne flutes. I take a sip from one and grimace. I never did like champagne. I drink it slowly, my eyes taking in the blur of figures spiralling around me. Putting down my empty glass, I eye the other sceptically. Reaching into my purse, I add a drop of my own personal favourite antidote, almost as an afterthought. Almost. Smiling at the idea of something so unusually subtle, I stir it carefully with my finger. Personally, I've always been more of a Romano Ricci Juliette Has a Gun kinda girl, but I'm warming to this new, nonchalant deceit. I slowly extract my finger and run it across my lips. Closing my eyes I resist the urge to taste it. Well we all like a bit of danger in our lives. Don't we. I stop teasing myself and open my eyes. I slowly make my way over to the bar. Winking at the tanned pelt behind it I hoist my antidote over the bar and let it shatter to the floor. Who can resist a bit of theatrics? Smoke rises and begins to fill the room. I hear someone cough. Deep breaths, sweetheart. Laughing, I scuttle off into the shadows. Cinderella is at home, all alone, fast asleep. Poor thing. She's about to miss the fireworks. It's time to find my Prince.

Try waving your wand now bitch.

it's so beautiful it makes you want to cry...

There are very few things in my mind that can compete with my love of perfume. Music perhaps, photographs maybe... but perfume is something which, for me, envelops all the senses in its warm embrace. You can see it: a beautiful, revered silhouette of reflecting glass, coyly allowing you to glimpse fragments of the precious liquid inside through its semi-transparent form. You can feel it: a light tingle when the wind blows across your wrists before the liquid has dryed, or a smooth, hard-edged surface which you wrap your fingers around in the vain hope that they will melt into the glistening planes. You can smell it: a heady aroma that has you immediately closing your eyes to picture an ex-lover, a cobbled street, a dusty book shop, a hotel suite, a quaint tearoom, a friend, a busy marketplace, a derelict jetty, a distant relative... the reaction is so instantaneous and surprising that the act can often become addictive. You can hear it: the soft whisper of a french accent you would die to possess, the sigh escaping from the close proximity of a pair of parted lips, the long awaited sound of the perfume leaving the bottle and embedding itself deep in your skin, becoming a part of your being. You can taste it: a desperate kiss laced with desire and need, as your tongue skims the cuff of an abandoned white shirt lying unabashedly in the morning sun, and along the slow and sensual journey from chin to collarbone.

How can something possess the power to evoke such passion and nostalgia?

"If love is a sin, then a fine perfume is what must compel you to commit it." - Jean-Paul Guerlain

Beautiful. In every way.