My Beloved,

I can no longer think of anything else but you. In my mind I grasp you, I kiss you, I hold you in my arms a thousand times.

You are my immortal Eros, my angel of the night. You, whom I see only in the light of the moon, in the confines of the dark. You are warmed by the blood of others and with this warmth you console my cold, gelid heart. Mon Dieu, what is to become of me? You have deprived me of all reason in your absence and I spend the days in a trance.

I want to cover you with love, with caresses, with little kisses. I want to shower it upon you so that you faint and die and whisper in my ear that you love me and will always love me and will never leave me again. I want you to cut your heart out for me and I will swallow it whole.

Darling, do not doubt my love for you. I would trap you in my arms so that when the sun rises you turn to ashes. And I would breathe you into my very soul so that you are with me always, never to part. But until then, I'm forever yours.

Love,
Sheryl.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

I've always had a thing for statues and Bernini contributed to this penchant of mine. Bernini is arguably the best sculptor, again in my opinion. And I dedicate a stanza of this poem, Sculptor by Sylvia Plath to his magnificence.

" To his house the bodiless
  Come to barter endlessly
  Vision, wisdom for bodies
  Palpable as his, and weighty. "

Selected favourites:

Trevi Fountain

Apollo and Daphne

Ecstasy of St. Teresa

The Rape of Proserpina

And a close detail of The Rape of Proserpina which shows realistic dents in the flesh

History

" I’d known for a long time why I loved history. It was because the historians made it sound so coherent, so purposeful, so complete. They’d take an entire century and impose a meaning on it, a personality, a destiny - and this was, of course, a lie. 

But it soothed me in my solitude to read that sort of writing, to think that the fourteenth century was a “distant mirror”, to paraphrase a famous title, to believe that we could learn from whole eras as if they had existed with marvelous continuity simply for us."

Anne Rice always does it best. She describes what I feel with unerring accuracy. 

Love Your Tumor

You said you want to
Kiss the wound
that is my mouth.
You would
suck away the
cosmic, eternal
darkness
into
you.

But you
don't know that
nobody will find the pain
in me,
because I am
your tumor. I
am your pain.
I love you
but I will never
wake again,
even if
I tried.

Outrun My Gun

This pretty much sums up everything I felt this week:

1. They exhaust me,

    I bore them. 

2. I would like to 

    be able to speak again. 

3. I've got a blister from 

    touching everyone I see

    the abyss opens up; 

    it steals everything from me.

4. Beaten black and blue

    from the inside
    now I can only be thought 
    of as a bruise.

5. I am sorry

    if you think I'm a zombie,

   but I'm just 

   too empty. 

6. Crushed beneath the gaze of strangers. 

7. I'm sorry for hating all of you. 

8. And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming

   Or the moment of the truth in your lies

   When everything feels like the movies

   Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive.

9. And I don't want the world to see me

    Cause I don't think that they'd understand.

10. Silence entombs me. 

      I could fade into silence.

      I dissolve in its silky flux.

      I am Silence. 

The Art of Being Alone

" Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. "


~ Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

Alexander McQueen

Of all the many fashion designers who are talented beyond imagination these days, I have to say that I have a penchant for Alexander McQueen. I guess it's because his designs are comparatively darker. It has an obsessive and morbid nature if you look beneath the gilded sequins and elaborate fabric and in a way some of it is almost, grotesque. And you know, that there is nothing I like more than grotesquery.

Besides, his designs have a romantic and sometimes medieval feel to it. Even when he designs something futuristic, there are the telltale details that suggest ancient origins. Also, I love the theatricality of his intricate and almost labyrinthine gowns. Every piece seems to hint at a mystery or a clandestine secret behind its folds. Oh God I could die in his glorious gowns. Anyway, a few of my favourites:

Autumn/Winter collection 2009

Autumn/Winter collection 2010

Savage Beauty collection: Romantic Nationalism

Miscellaneous

Happy New Year

Can't really believe it's 2012 already. I'm skeptical about the whole Mayan prophecy thing, but in any case, I really hope that the world doesn't end this year or anytime soon.

I started 2012 reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, having read the abridged version a few years ago and for some reason this gives me the confidence that it's going to be a good year. I mean, I know it's a downright depressing and even slightly maniacal book but, I don't know, it soothes me like all depressing things do.

Anyway, quote from the book:
"We all have such fateful objects -- it may be a recurrent landscape in one case, a number in another -- carefully chosen by the gods to attract events of specific significance for us: here shall John always stumble; there shall Jane's heart always break."