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.

you, fall away, from your past, but it's following you...

Do you remember the raw excitement in my eyes? Nowadays it's laced with caution, apprehensively awaiting the denial, the rejection, the coldness. Why are you so afraid? Why are you trying to tame me?

Not just when you feel like it. Not just when you want to. Not just when you remember.

Like a little lost child I am desperately clinging to your sleeve, and every time you look at me, I can feel you slowly prising my fingers apart.

I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know, what more can I do?..

Gilded Cages

It's the same everytime. I always end up thinking the same things when I visit my beloved Camden. I feel like I'm going home. I feel like, just for a moment, everything is ok. Not fine, not perfect, but somehow bearable. It soothes me. Now as I ride the rickety black thread I am a little anxious. I am embarrassed. I am ashamed, because I am no longer fearless. I can no longer claim to care nothing for the opinions of others. I have become someone else. I am no longer my own person. I am losing my identity. I do not have the energy to be wild anymore. I disappoint myself. Sometimes I try hard to regain it, but even if it comes back to me for a little while, it is soon gone. I am no longer fierce. I am no longer savage. Gone are the days when I couldn't be tamed. I have been caged.

Green eyes through bars of a golden cage...

I can't talk to you anymore. You only see the outside, you don't look past the golden case. Oh so pretty you're too normal for me. So pretty. Not inside. Bursting damaged twisted distorted warped  s c r e a m i n g.

Here I go again,
Dancing in the pouring rain,
On the road breaks are screaming,
Headlights flashing,
My heart is dreaming.

Mona Lisa, I'd pay to see you frown.
You seem a bit down.
Crashing down.
I don't feel like joining in with the parade today.
Clowns all around me, it's a cross I need to bear, all this black and cruel despair...
Contemplate or wish away IF I ASK YOU NOT TO STAY

What is the point of pretence?
Tears softly falling onto the stone tiles of your en-suite bathroom...
I feel your hesitation in each embrace. I hold you tighter to crush the pain.
You are way too normal to handle me.
Perhaps I am self-destructive. Either way you are oblivious. How can you not see?
My Immortal, what do I do? We've fallen away, but I still need you. There is no one like you. Only you feel my pain. I wish I could help you. I wish you could help me. Hold me for eternity.
So normal. So calm. So ordinary. Will you ever awake? What can I do to make you see? Please open your eyes. Why so serious?

WHY SO SERIOUS??!!

I was just trying to run away, to forget if only for a second, an afternoon, a day. I just wanted to escape and remember how it felt to smile. Really smile. To not have to fake it. Now I have tasted escape I want it again. I want it more. As it gets worse I need it again. And it's getting worse. You are no longer my escape. I can't run away with you. You are becoming just another thing to run from. Every time I run to you you push me away. Soon I will be running away and you'll be chasing me.

You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

In the night as I sit and watch you sleep, you know I cry but you never want to see...

Stay with me Evelyn...

That day. Such a powerful memory, so potent.

Stay with me Evelyn,
Don't leave me with the medicine,
I'm more afraid than I've ever been,
So stay with me Eve... lyn...

Such a whirlwind of chaotic thoughts engulfing consuming sufforcating. A ficticious see-saw, almost useen to the eye, swinging playfully (maliciously) to and fro, to and fro. Listen. Drown out the voices, mummy's not coming home tonight baby.

Spin.

Come on come on, turn a little faster.
Come on come on, the world will follow after.

Broken hearts and torn up letters,
Girl you just can't dance forever.

A letter written in black sealed with wax. Red and black.

Sufforcating. Let me breathe a different kind of air.

We both suffer but we don't talk about it. What is there to say? We both sit there not really listening but hearing every word as they gently pierce our skin and poison our blood. Blood. Why does having the same blood matter so much? Our blood isn't healthy. It's tainted, clotted and congealed. It's turning on itself and we have only our own bitterness to blame.

Public is Private

People like to know that you are the person they think you are. If you do something they consider to be 'out of character' it unsettles them and confuses them. People don't like being confused. This is where the judgement comes in, because you are not conforming to their idea of 'you'. It is therefore so much easier to be open and truthful to people who have no idea who you are. They are judging you soley on what they read. They do not have any presuppositions or presumptions; they will not discriminate against you as they have no foundation for their prejudices. They have no 'previous experience' with you. Unfortunately they too form a person in their minds, this time based on the words you write, and if chance should decide to bring you together they are then subject to an unrestricted compulsion to compare their image of you to the 'you' they meet. Again if these do not match, you are in trouble. Until the two meet, however, you are safe. Until this happens, you can write what you want and they'll either love it or hate it. Until then, public is private.

The future of fashion: are we travelling backwards?

Vintage. Retro. Original. A timeless classic. These describe many things we desperately crave in this world of rapid technological advancement. Visiting a friend and noticing a mock 60’s dial phone perched atop a rococo-inspired coffee table can instil a sense of nostalgia, envy or disgust. Depending on when we were born and our own unique tastes, relics from the past can affect us in many different ways. What puzzles me, though, is not the way in which our tastes develop to embrace certain styles from the past, but why.

 

The neat notebooks with faded yellow pages and little wallets bordered and dotted with stamps labelled ‘by air mail’ which are crammed onto shelves in department stores and boutiques are not souvenirs of the present. They belong to a world we never knew or at least no longer revolve in. Raiding grandma’s closet for a silky rayon blouse with an open-neck collar is considered more fashionable than hitting the shops. Why the obsession with old items? What do they have that modern versions don’t? The simple truth is that we cannot keep up with ourselves and our own rapid advancement. We yearn above all to connect; to keep a fragment of ‘the good old days’ alive, and whether we do this through a photograph or an old perfume, it helps us to stabilise and find our place in the big wide world. Snatching at anything we can find, items from the past help to build our identity and through them we become our own unique person – something which is becoming increasingly difficult in a place where ‘unique’ almost no longer exists. From Dolce and Gabbana’s baroque prints to Gucci’s Edwardian-inspired gowns for the Autumn/Winter 2012 collections, fashion brands delve deeply into the dusty archives of our past to bring us a ‘new take’ on an old model. Is there no such thing as ‘brand new’ anymore? They say that history repeats itself, but are we digging too deep that soon we won’t be moving forward at all?

The ease with which we can send a text or an email adds weight to a posted hand-written letter. Old methods have become something special, something with a superior level of meaning, something to treasure. With technology and fashion increasingly crossing paths to create possibilities of instant purchase and live streaming, will we soon stop bothering to attend the physical catwalks? Or will this advancement cause the same patterned reaction of heightened interest in things considered out-dated? Will we relish in watching first hand the rows of cloth-coated limbs flowing gracefully down the runway because they will be part of a world we no longer know? Fashion takes inspiration from tradition, old trends and classic pieces invented long ago. If ‘new’ is no longer accessible, which way is forward?

Requiem for a Dream

Flames. Bright, unquenchable flames flickering in the distance. And a girl. A beautiful girl standing, watching. My eyes rotate and the image shifts. A car speeding into the darkness. It is a red Ford Fiesta called Alice with tinted windows and a lowered front bumper. Propane Nightmares and smoke from Pall Mall cigarettes escape from the half opened glass and remain floating over the tarmac of Totteridge Lane after we are long gone. We are laughing. We are drunk and laughing. Shaking my head in time with the music I lean my head backwards out of the window and look up into the night’s sky.

“Faster!” I yell, giggling at the adrenaline rush as he laughs and obediently hits the accelerator.

Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up she goes, up she goes!
Balance yourself like a bird on a beam in the air she goes, there she goes!
Up, up, a little bit higher, oh my, the moon is on fire!
Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up, all on, good-bye…

I feel the wind in my hair and I never want this moment to end. I feel so alive. I feel so untamed. I feel so free.

“Faster.” I murmur, knowing that the word will get snatched up by the wind before it reaches his ears.

“Faster, faster, faster.” My lips only mouth the words, and my brows furrow as I try to recall what this moment reminds me of.

Now we’re flying to the moon and back, if you’ll be, if you’ll be my baby…

I sit up suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” he says, but he’s not there anymore.

Got a ticket for a world where we belong…

I smile a little at the beauty, but my eyes are sad. Such devastating beauty. So horribly pure and wonderful. Deadly, but how can you not love her? How can you not want to be her?

My eyes flicker under their lids and the image changes again before I see her. This time I am in a dark room. There are posters on the walls. A hundred nameless faces looking straight at me but avoiding my gaze. This time it is only a matter of seconds before I am clawing at them and laying them all to rest in tatters on the cold stony floor. My nails close around the face of a young girl with dark hair and a gaunt, pallid face. She is standing on a ladder wearing a dress made of paper. I tear her to shreds and find what I want in the space she once occupied. My fingers push to reveal a hidden door. It gives way and opens. Blinding lights pour out and it is several moments before I am able to step out into the next scene. The noise hits me. It is the sound of applause. Clapping hands dance around me as I take the stage. They echo around the vast theatre. I look out at them and slowly I bow low. The crowd erupts. I throw a sideways smile their way as I playfully skip off the stage. Behind the curtain I break into a run. I run past tall buildings and men in suits until they become blades of grass and strands of wheat. A chestnut horse with a white star on his forehead runs beside me. Floating onto his back we gallop into the distance, and my body rises and falls as I dream of Celia…

thirsty?

they say they are evil

      because they hunt at night
       because they walk in the shadows
        because they drink blood from the vein

but it's just a kiss...

with fangs.

six impossible things before breakfast

Sitting on my windowsill and looking out onto the sullen world I've been losing myself in contemplative daydreams and sinking further into spirals of whimsical nonsense. With my 'raBBit EyEs' playlist breaking the silence in the back of my mind, I find myself once again in a place I recognise but do not understand. The many different worlds in my head sometimes slip through the protective shell of my skull like wispy smoke on a winter morning and lie glistening in my watery eyes. Tripping over my bottom lid and falling with a barely audible sound onto the dry flecked paint below, they become immobile.

If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense
Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't

I wonder at the world outside my window. I think of how beautiful it is. How devastating. How potent. How unsuspecting. I sit wishing I was brave enough to smash the glass and step outside where the darkness would engulf me. Music is so much more powerful when heard in the dark. I close my eyes.

Let down your defences, use no common sense, if you look you will see that this world is a
Beautiful accident, turbulent, succulent, opulent, permanent…
I wanna taste it, don't wanna waste it away…

Sometimes all it takes is one note (normally a D flat) echoing in the empty space where you used to stand to bring back a surge of memories. Memories on an old fuzzy tape playing on a video cassette recorder that jogs and splutters as it attempts to focus in on your eyes. I rewind it again and again, becoming angry at its carefree pace as I try to remember where the best bits were, and whether there in fact were any. I get up and snatch it out from the jaws of the video player. Sitting cross legged in the centre of the room I prise the cassette open with my teeth and begin to pull on the thin white ribbon. Letting it cascade down in folds onto my lap, I finally find the bit I want. I sit looking at the narrow strip in my hands. Images come flooding in along with an unhealthy dose of lovely voices that stab with each syllable they utter. Still clutching the sacred ribbon I press it into my heart as the relentless stream of pictures tosses me through a whirlwind of things long gone. A few fragments break off and lodge themselves in my skin like little shards of glass as the fabric of my memory begins to fray. Soon it is just a tiny scrap of clothing, a small blade of grass, a few specs of dust, until at last it ceases to exist. I blink. I blink. Gradually I return to the body of a girl sitting cross legged in the centre of a room. I look down and see the thin white film still in my hands. I tie it in a bow around my wrist and getting up, I let the tape clatter noisily on the stone floor as I trail it behind me into the darkness.

In contrary wise, what it is it wouldn't be
And what it wouldn't be it would
You see?

Do Ojczyzny...

Śpiewa Ci obcy wiatr
Zachwyca piękny świat
A serce tęskni
Bo gdzieś daleko stąd
Został rodzinny dom
Tam jest najpiękniej

Tam właśnie teraz rozkwitły kwiaty
Stokrotki, fiołki, kaczeńce i maki
Pod polskim niebem, w szczerym polu wyrosły
Ojczyste kwiaty. W ich zapachu, urodzie jest Polska.

Żeby tak jeszcze raz
Ujrzeć ojczysty las
Pola i łąki
I do matczynych rąk
Zanieść z zielonych łąk
Rozkwitłe pąki

Bo najpiękniejsze są polskie kwiaty
Stokrotki, fiołki, kaczeńce i maki...

Śpiewa Ci obcy wiatr
Tułaczy los Cię gna
Hen gdzieś po świecie
Zabierz ze sobą w świat
Zabierz z ojczystych stron
Mały bukiecik

Weź z tą piosenką bukiecik kwiatów
Stokrotek, fiołków kaczeńców i maków...

sometimes i dream in black and white...