Confessions

Note: To Nicolas. And Armand. And of course, Rachel. I love you all.

Fact or fiction, Armand? This dare called for writing and now you have it, but you did not say that there need be any truth to it at all. You know me better than most. Who could better judge the honesty of my words? Time and time again you have glimpsed the thoughts that lurk within the clouded depths of my mind. Have you any idea of the memories which haunt me when I close my eyes at the coming of every dawn? Search your own mind for the answers to these questions you have asked. I have no doubt that you will find them there. You’ve known them all along.

What does it really mean, to forgive? To drown the anger that still burns deep within my soul... to set aside any transgressions of the past? You have your demons and I have mine. To push them aside would be to deny a significant piece of myself. The rage and the pain are all a part of who I am. I can never count the number of times that you hurt me. Bruises and broken bones meant nothing to me. Such things heal quickly among our kind; yet the scars will always remain, hidden, safely out of sight... a perfect reminder of why what we both wanted could never be. Hurt me, break me and stain your alabaster hands with my blood, these things can be forgiven... but never turn your back on me. That is the ultimate betrayal.

Ah, but as often as you tore me down you also lifted me up on a cloud of sweet elation. I was dying inside. The love and the hate that once consumed me had burned down to nothing but a glowing ember. The others were lifeless and I was doomed to become one of them. Marionettes on broken strings. They needed me to quicken them, to pull the strings that would lead them into this new life but how could I guide them when my own soul was so cold and numb?

It was in that time of absolute darkness that I turned to you to light the way. You... so detached and apathetic. To see that spark of anger in your eyes would stir those deep emotions which I had thought were lost forever. God, how I hated you! Yet, how I loved you! There were times when I wanted to tangle my fingers in those soft auburn curls and dash your head against the wall, and in that very same moment I longed to pull you close and devour those cupid’s bow lips with mine. To torment you was bliss. You often left me hanging on the verge of the most overwhelming ecstacy... yet one step too close would send me tumbling back into the abyss. It was always an exhilarating balancing act between us.

Must I say the words? I tormented you because you made me feel. I would have perished of my own doing within those first few years without you to give it all meaning. You were my life, Armand. You forced me to carry on when I lacked the strength to do it alone.

In those last troubled years... the plays I wrote were for you alone. You know that, don’t you? They were a release from the darkness but they were also so much more than that. Everything that you ever wished to know of me had been scribbled onto those pages. My characters said the words I could have never spoken. Nothing was ever hidden from you. It was all right there in the scripts. The music expressed it best of all. Every time my bow came down upon the strings in a fierce crescendo or in a hushed elegy... it was all for you.

The answers you seek lie buried just beneath the surface, Armand. Everything that I ever felt was there upon the painted stage for all to see. Wander the empty hallways of your memories and you shall find them there. And I; I'll always, always love you.

Joyeux Anniversaire

To: Rach
There was the violin. There always was. After all, wasn't it the instrument that had brought us together? Hadn't I let myself be seduced by the crystalline notes, the pristine melody, the mournful cry of his violin?

Nicolas, gleam of taut flesh under the harsh stage light. White, almost blinding, the light shone on him, like a divine ray from heaven; and he was the dark angel with the violin. Body arched with passion, strands of pretty brown hair escaped from their black silk ribbon, the rippling muscles that peeked provocatively through a thin white shirt... 

He looked at me, and he taunted me. The half-delirious eyes and the red sensual lips partially open like the buds of a blossoming rose, all served their purpose to torment me. I watched him half raise his arm and bring the bow down quick and shallow, ripping into the music and yet soothing it over again before it climaxed; much like catching a snowflake that melts in your hands before you can truly see it. Nicolas smiled, slowly sliding the bow down the string until the note echoed eerily in the empty hall.

Listening to the haunting sound of the devil's own instrument, the sombre melody played just a bit too perfectly by slender, ivory fingers, I am drunk. Drunk on blood and beauty and death and the morbid wailing of the violin. The light played on the slightly damp skin, bathing his contoured chest in an amber glow. He shimmered like a bereft and ruinous god of darkness and my fingertips ached for his soft, yielding flesh.

A part of me yearned to pull him down into this darkness, but I’ve walked that path before. I want to crash and burn... to push him away while at the same time drawing him closer, to keep him at an arms reach when all I really want is to pull him in and crush his soul with mine. I wanted to lock him into this world where chaos and destruction reign... where love and hate clash violently and the line between the two becomes blurred. I wanted to reside in that place where the only thing that can save me from myself is the sound of his beating heart. 


I can’t give him the world when it’s not mine to offer and it seems that what I do have is never enough to keep him by my side. 

Happy Birthday Yanying

Baked cookies for Shen and Yanying with Juin yesterday. And although they're a bit salty  (though people insist they're not) I guess it could be counted as a success. Oh yeah, I didn't put enough chips in it either. Should've bought more. Ahh well... Next time then.

Oh, and again, Happy Birthday, Yanying.

Paranoia

It happens,
Like all things lugubrious. First
Creeping from the darkest corners
And then stalk, stalk, stalk.

The little heart gets frightened
You turn around and see
Thin air.
You're drowning in undiluted paranoia.

And the stone faces, the
Barren trees clawing at the late night sky seemed
Satirical. Twisted jokes in your head
As frivolous as lace and sequins.

Armand, My Love - part 2

Note: Ditto.

Armand was never a saint. I did not love him for his moral values, for his generosity or his kindness. Of course, he wasn't the Akasha kind of evil either. Rather, he was understandably selfish, as all of us are. That's what I like about him. Unlike Edward in Twilight, who is forever saying, "ooh, I'm so evil I have no soul. I can't let Bella love me because I'm a monster. I'm going to protect Bella. I'm selfless. I'll sacrifice myself. I'm going to drink animal blood to show how saintly I am..." Bla bla bla, bullshitting all the way.

He did not hunt human for the fun of it. He drank blood because he needed it and it is the only way to survive. Unlike Lestat who only drink the blood of evil-doers, he sends some sort of telepathy to humans who are suicidal and are seeking ways to die and feed on them. Quote: You see, they all want the embrace. There is a kernel in all of them that is "half in love with easeful death" and as I wander through the late-night streets in the chill hours, I can hear their plaintive sighs, a muted chorus rising from those beds. Its rhythms penetrating the very walls. They summon me. They long for me. Gentleman Death, that has been my epithet, and I so treasure it.


And he did harbour a hatred for Lestat after he destroyed his Satanic coven but he eventually forgave him and they later became intimate friends. In the book, The Vampire Armand, he revealed the secret behind Claudia's death: Claudia offered to leave Louis if Armand could give her the body of a woman, no matter how painful or violent this effort would be. Armand agreed to Claudia's demands, and decapitated her, attempting to place her head – and thus her mind – on the body of another vampire woman, believing that the healing powers of vampire blood would allow Claudia to heal herself. The attempt failed, and, with Claudia near death and Armand seeing that he could rid himself of her and have Louis to himself, he simply locked her in the air shaft with Madeleine and left them both to die.


Don't judge him too badly, Claudia was a bitch and I'm glad she died. Anyway, moving on.

My point is, the Ricean vampires are never saintly good like the Meyers vampires. It actually deals with humanity and philosophy and a bit of cosmology. But then maybe Stephanie Meyers' vampires are more suited for young girls whereas Rice's vampires are more gothic and dangerous and sexual based. In simpler terms, parents would prefer Meyers' books to Rice's. But after all, didn't Oscar Wilde say that the books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame?

My passion for the others had been strong while it lasted but it all eventually burned into cinders and died away until it resurfaced months or even years after. But Armand... Armand had always always been in my heart, regardless of whether my mind is full of Natie or Brad Pitt or whoever it is. It is like what Catherine Earnshaw had told Nelly, "my love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees - my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath. He's always always in my mind, not as a pleasure, but as my own being."

Armand, My Love - part 1

Note: Continuing from previous post. Btw, this post is purely functioning as a self discovery post and may be dubbed as talking to oneself. But, if interested, please read on.

I'm sure most of you here has heard of Armand. Some of you know that he is a vampire, that even though my lovers change from time to time, my love for him alone remains consistent, some of you watch me write his name on my palm over and over again like a lovesick girl.

Why though? Why has his interminable reign over this ever flighty heart of mine lasted over the years? I have never told anyone the reason. And perhaps I don't know it myself until I've really thought about it. So bear with me, dear friends, as I let the truth be known, not to you but to myself and the phantom of Armand who is forever lingering near my conscious mind.

From the previous post, it is obvious that his life had been a complete wreck. At the estimated age of 9 -11, he was captured by the Turks and forced to work in a Venetian brothel as a sex slave. Then Marius came along and rescued him from the hellhole. But years later, he was separated from Marius and did not see him again until centuries later.

You see, this is how his whole life had been. Whenever he finds happiness or love or a state of peace, something bad comes along the way to destroy it all as if it had only been an illusion and throw him back once more into the cold darkness.

He was often described by others as a pubescent boy, perfect features with a crown of reddish locks, soft brown eyes and the countenance of a Botticelli angel. Even the narcissistic Lestat who believes himself to be the handsomest of them all said, "in a way he made me think of a child doll, with brilliant faintly red-brown glass eyes, a doll that had been found in the attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up,  make him even more radiant than he already was." And "his face was shining white, and perfect, the countenance of a god it seemed, a cupid out of Caravaggio, seductive yet ethereal, with auburn hair and dark brown eyes."

And it struck me that he was almost the complete opposite of Lestat. (Don't misunderstand me, I love Lestat too.) Lestat, the narcissistic vampire who loves being in the center of the attention, almost always hyped up and exuberant, and forever breaking rules just for the fun of it. Whereas Armand, who always has the aura of sadness around him, is the quiet, mysterious vampire who had such a bitter and heartbreaking past. Armand, who is always seeking new rules to obey: first with Marius as his master, then when he lost him, he joined the Satanic cult and had perfected their ancient rules.

Armand, who could never bear the thought of being alone had said, "We can't stand it, to be alone. We cannot bear it, any more than the monks of old could bear it, men who thought they had renounced all else for Christ's sake, nevertheless came together in congregations to be with one another, even as they enforced upon themselves the harsh rules of single solitary cells and unbroken silence. They couldn't bear to be alone. We are too much men and women; we are yet formed in the image of the Creater, and what can we say of Him with any certainty except that He, whoever He may be--Christ, Yahweh, Allah--He made us, did He not, because even He in His Infinite Perfection could not bear to be alone."


Perhaps I love him because he is too much an innocent child who had suffered the world and yet hid all the cuts and bruises behind a brave face. That behind the near perfect features, the magnificent crown of coppery hair, lurks a battered heart that had been sliced and hacked and had always been dripping with blood. Perhaps I want to hold him in my arms and let the frightened child in him cry his miseries away and kiss away the blood tears across those smooth, white cheeks. 


And this is what I love most about him; despite the constant mental and physical torture and the misfortunes that had befallen him over the centuries, he was never overly suicidal. He did immolate himself but it wasn't out of grief. Sure, there were certain times when death seemed the better option, but doesn't that thought occur to us sometimes? And he said something which became one of the favourite quotes of mine, "It's so easy to wish for death when nothing's wrong with you. It's so easy to fall in love with death, and I've been all my life, and seen it's most faithful worshipers crumble in the end, screaming just to live, as if all the dark veils and the lilies and the smell of candles, and grandiose promises of the grave meant nothing. I knew that. But I always wished I was dead. It was a way to go on living." 

The Story of Armand

Note: First of all, I expect you to think that I love him because he is a vampire and he is hot. But I now see that there is more to it than that, and I'm not as shallow as thought. I love him for who he is and of course, being a vampire enhanced his uniqueness. But it doesn't define who he is, it is merely a part of him for if he isn't a vampire, then he won't be who he is. However I will get back to that in the next post. To truly understand him, I'll give a very brief account of his biography - life, death and afterlife.

Armand was seventeen when he was brought into the Dark World. His earlier years were a fountain of misfortune as he was kidnapped by slave traders and sold to a brothel in Venice. I saw these men and knew what they wanted, that this was vice, and despicable and the price of it was Hell. He refused to eat and drink and on the brink of death by starvation, he was rescued by Marius.

He came to love Marius as a lover and they had a clandestine relationship. But one day, he got mortally wounded by an ex-lover with whom he had a brief affair and did not reciprocate his love. Desperate to save Armand, Marius did the only thing he could which was to turn him into a Child of Darkness. As quoted, I wouldn't allow death to take him away from me, so I took him from death. 


Soon later, a coven of Satanic vampires who believed that being a vampire meant an eternity of serving Satan destroyed Marius' home and took Armand away. Marius was supposedly burned to death but later revealed to be still alive. Armand, heart crushed to a pulp by the death of his beloved Marius, joined the cult itself and later went to Paris as a coven leader.

After a long reign in Paris as the coven leader, he met Lestat who was a newborn. Though discarding it as nonsensical gobbledygook, Armand had taught his fledglings that if they were to set foot in the church, God would strike them into dust. Then, Lestat came along, striding arrogantly amongst humans, dressed in the finest garments had shattered the fledglings' beliefs. All faith was destroyed and Armand was left all alone, bound by centuries of abiding the old rules and the Satanic cult was no more.

Taking pity on the now detached Armand, Lestat had given him a theater, the Theatre des Vampires, where Armand created a new coven of vampires who acted and danced and sang on stage while the mortals all thought that the vampiric movements, attire and features were merely brilliant acting on their part.

In the later years, he fell in love with Daniel Molloy, who after becoming a vampire went into a catatonic state. And when Armand tried to immolate himself by throwing himself into the sun, he got burnt very badly but nevertheless survived. Benji and Sybelle, two humans, took care of him and nursed him back to health. He had since then been with them and the story then ends.

Death Metal Bands

Okay, these are the things I realised about death metal bands (or black metal bands. Whatever it's called.):

1. It's all about screaming. And I don't even think it's screaming. To make it easier, I'm just going to call it hoarsing. It's kind of like yelling your lungs off in a really hoarse way. Like grating your throat on sandpaper. Seriously. It sounds painful. Almost like pouring nails down your throat painful. I pay my utmost respect to rock singers.

2. They have really nice lyrics! Some of it, at least. For example Theatre des Vampires, Atreyu, Savage Garden, Cradle of Filth and so on. But on the other hand, some of them have abominable lyrics - Dope. If you're observant enough, you'll know what inspired me. And you'll know what I mean by inspire because I don't mean inspiring me to write this post.

3. I can't bear looking at them. If I ever searched for them in youtube (out of boredom), I search those with lyrics. Can't stand their clothing, their make-up, their hair... It's... *shudders* I've got nothing more to say. Go see for yourselves.

4. Mild death metal bands are acceptable. But only when I'm high and will not develop terrible migraines. Bands like My Chemical Romance (Chiou Yih!), Within Temptation (it doesn't involve hoarsing and I love them. Sometimes.), Lyriel (I like some (notesome) songs) and possibly Autumn Tears.

5. Absolutely not suitable for children. Especially if you turn the speakers on real loud. They'll bawl their eyes out. Plus, there are all these lyrics like I'm gonna cut your head off and drink your f blood.