My dreams have been anomalous, cold; i wouldn’t acknowledge them as nightmares because they scarcely involve deviltry, or anything tragic for that matter, but there is the conspicuous residence of a dark being almost nightly. I could be bearing a fairly customary dream and some form of phantasm would be present. Existent. In view. Occasionally within reach. It is just there. It often lingers static and isn’t up to anything, but it is watching.. sometimes from a distance, sometimes next to me. A shadow. A soaring hooded figure. A lady. Few evenings ago it was a Doppelgänger, save that it wasn’t in the realm of actuality, for they are harbingers of misfortune. My sister came home that night for dinner and i retired to bed soon after she left. Plunged into a dream forthwith, i found myself walking into her room only to meet with her facing the wall at a standstill. In the depths of my submerged mind i registered that she had just departed and could not possibly be in the area with me. I enquired about her occupation, first politely, then sharply when frightened. She insisted it was her but, incensed by my grit, turned her neck and bore her eyes into mine. Recognizing the quandary i tried to flee but remained rooted, and the aberration then surfaced into sleep paralysis. I can’t be fucked talking about it now, but if i’ve shared my encounters with you previously you would know how saying it happens to me all the time is a gross understatement. What’s unwonted here isn’t sleep paralysis but the bizarre ubiquity of apparitions in nearly every dream of late. 3 hours ago i was faraway in a visit to a women’s execution centre.. i cannot elucidate enough the number of specters witnessed.

It has been an attempt to piece these unsettling dreams together with the fact that i have been battered by my graduating project, and that my mind puts itself on a retreat, though evidently not on the best one available. On an assuaging note, i will be done on Monday. My external examiner is among the founders of London Fashion Week and has been hailed as the high priestess of British fashion by the Telegraph. That itself is as fearsome as my shady dreams.. not quite, but almost.

Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.

-Anthony Brandt

 

I don’t remember the last time i felt so defenseless. Perhaps it was during one of the endless rabid episodes with a moonstruck ex, or the pervasive black spells that customarily oppress me into emotional ruin. I am inflamed, petrified and powerless to the nth degree. I don’t know to what portions the issue decays itself among pride, security and injustice; i do know that between bleeding my eyes dry and forcing out chuckles, this is a trial of ties. I try to remind myself that my story does indeed stem from my parents’, and there is no blame. How fleeting life is, much less matter.. can i truly face us raising the white flag? Saying yes would groom resentment in me, but saying no would be far too selfish. Woe is me.

To have had everything and then nothing at all.. this Christmas will be dismal. Dusky. Cold. To be able to claim that this is just the door to reconditioning our lives for the better would be ideal.. but on the most part, this would probably just make them intricately wearisome and galling like never before.

 I see no light at the end of the tunnel. I cannot feel my way at all.

Opened hand / Veronika Decides To Die

The month has slithered past me after a fleeting coil and i can’t, for the life of me, recall much of its affairs.. if i even should. Seated here at 4 in the morning, Cheestik in hand and hair so damp it makes my neck clammy, i don’t know what to do with myself but perhaps take a shot at deterging the bleakness that always keeps me both awake and aloof. When was the last time i was at ease? It’s been a bit, except for last Friday where for a few good hours my heart was placid and settled and, with some chocolate cake and a bag of chips, i managed to voice my dreams and desires while watching the bushed world go by and on with their lives at 3am. I can be and have been a fierce listener to plenty, stringing along with how i talk little, but people mostly choke the steam out of an encounter when they see the blank canvas meant for them to compose and etch on as an emotional dumping landscape. What happens when no one returns the favour of a release, or only simulates one with no heartfelt intention of knowing? To know, be still and opened to enwrapping and disgesting? This submergence has been sore.. these days i can only let the phone ring. I can only feign incomprehension and step away. Are you drawing into or from me? I, too, need to be remedied and harkened.

We need to lie atop the bonnet in comfortable silence amidst the vast expanse again as if rapture had came and went and we were the only 2 people vacuumed out by both climaxes, Pea. Thank you for listening and unlayering what so many cemented with selfhood and embracing the dark, dismal ball of friction i am, often manifesting the love only a sister can give.

*

‘.. But all that is just part of life, i think; and the price you pay for having to deal with those minor problems is far less than the price you pay for not recognising they’re yours.’

-Paulo Coelho

I am at my rawest.

If you’ve always harboured a masked provocation, your time to strike is now.

Poached Salmon & cake

The past month has been hectic.. fervid even in more ways than one. Post-delirium, July is a time of repose; i hanker after careless days of reading indefinitely and doing all things frivolous. This is the period of rest, expansion and all things good for the kernel of my soulfruit, for there is much to remedy and make right again.

Can anyone hear me

These days my mental sieve retains close to naught; i walk i talk but the mesh traps no cerebral coursings and i function by rote of daily living, automatism if you will, and on better days regain percipiency after 6. I need more Fridays, Saturdays, if not for the fatuous partying at least for the calm conversations at length of which i acquire a firmer grip on feelings and consciousness.

It is hard to be ricocheting off tangent insentient, but it is harder to be ricocheting off tangent insentient and there is nothing enough to gravitate you back.

 

You know you’re wearing too much eyeliner when your manager bids you farewell and kindly presents a Bobbi Brown eyeliner set.

If there is one thing i truly relish for interning under Home, it’d doubtlessly be the jolt of making me take notice of the multifarious products available these days, a number of which are so unbelievably quaint i am now equipped with a modest obsession for homeware – Lightings, dinettes, bed linens and such. Certainly it is no longer only homemakers who are charmed; i spent a good hour ogling at spoons while disputing the constant eagerness to withdraw them out of their motley assortment of boxes for a good probe. Christ, WMF in itself bewildered me right off the reel. They’ve got kiwi spoons, grapefruit spoons, jam spoons, muesli spoons, yoghurt spoons, cream spoons, egg spoons and the list persists.. how can one not marvel over these fascinating novelties? The cutlery itself leaves me famished. Villa’s S/S 08 scented candles are equally enticing with their flavours, some of which include ginger pear, mango mandarine and toasted hazelnut. Is it me or is there an aromatic whiff already?

 I shall delve back into the pulsing furniture geek in me and continue scouring sites now..

The Office

My days have been glacially composed; everyday is a rude arousal of what i feared would transpire some point in my life. I remain seated, confined, attempting at best to spread the dilatory hours out befittingly like jam on bread. I stir my cup of cereal inconspicuously while early morning tattle streams in from all directions – Ah, she’s pregnant again, how’d she handle four? My 8 year-old is still too bashful to purchase his meals in school.. who’d be surprised, look at the father! As the dreary day unravels i find myself being induced into the unchanging state i was at the day before, of the resoluteness i’ve generated to never put myself in this situation again whether i’m at an acute standstill in life or not. The stuporous, mindless tasks, of which upon completion i am sentenced to pretense of occupation by delving further into the web, careful about sensitive content that may loom though i am just a breath away from losing it and screw minding my P’s and Q’s. Occasionally i take a glimpse of my cubicle partner in her forties and wonder how she stomachs the ennui, for her duties are no more spectacular than mine and she is definitely not 2 and a half weeks away from emancipation. It could be her kids, whom she raves fondly about during lunches, or simply the very fact that she needs to slot herself somewhere into the monotonous jobscope of being an aide like her several peers just because. Just because it’s natural, just because it’s right. Every time she spots my sullen countenance she can only offer a kind smile, one that i appreciate but am baffled by since i cannot comprehend the acceptance of kismet. I tremble at the thought of being sucked into this dark vortex too, someday, that already has left a vacuous stretch across the lives of many, and can only pray that the choler cooked up within me daily will starve me of the temptation to just become long enough.