To-Do List

To tell you the truth, I've been feeling really empty ever since my exams are over. I don't know, maybe I'm just not quite used to total liberation yet. Anyway, I wake up every morning to watch Mummy Autopsy and then have my breakfast, then watch another movie, then have lunch, then read American Gods by Neil Gaiman (of which I totally recommend), then watch Ancients Behaving Badly or something from History channel, then wander around or stare at the ceiling or sit in front of the fridge deciding what to eat then end up eating nothing, then watch America's Next Top Model re-runs, then have dinner, then watch How I Met Your Mother re-runs, then go online, then read The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, then sleep.

So, I've decided that I really need a To-Do list or I'll wake up one day to find that I couldn't get up because my legs had already rotted away.

Things to do:

1. Driving lessons. Not looking forward to it. =(
2. Shopping for New Year. =D
3. Learn French. 
4. Christmas shopping!
5. Russian literature. I refuse to be intimidated. But I am. 

Game of Thrones

So you know I've always been an absolute movie maniac and my not-so-recent movie obsession is Game of Thrones. It's based on a series of fantasy novels by G.R.R. Martin about the... well, the game of thrones. It's about people who are willing to do anything for power, people who already have power and trying to keep it and people who've lost their power.

And yes, like most movies that I like, it has an abundant number of hot people. You know I can never resist armour-wearing, sword-wielding, arrow-shooting, horse-riding guys. With thick British/Scottish accent. And soft, curly hair.

First of all, there's Jon Snow

Then, Robb Stark

And Renly Baratheon,

And finally, antagonist, Viserys.

I Miss You

I miss you.
And all I am breathing are thoughts.
I gasp and splutter and there is no
air. Only dense clouds of
memories.

The little droplets of anguish run
like blood - rolling and tumbling onto each other
they clot into masses of black and they
choke me
to the point of delirium.

In my lugubrious dose of morbidity
I cried with a thousand eyes.
I wander alone
in the reverberating hollow concourse
of your absence:
missing you and hating you
to the point of death.

Hello December

December brings the promise of all things wonderful. The absence of winter has failed to dwindle the pre-Christmas excitement and I'm beginning to really anticipate Christmas. I don't know why but it has an indescribable hold over me as something magical and immeasurably heartwarming.

Exams would be over by then - thank God - and the holidays would commence. And I would finally be free of high school and though it's a sad and daunting thought, it fills me with undeniable enthusiasm about what the future holds for me. 

It's only the beginning of my life and be it a happy or difficult one, (please let it be the former) I'm determined that it should have an absolutely rocking takeoff. 

And as usual, please be good to me. =)

Herbert Draper

He's another one of my numerous - I admit - favourite painters, famous for depicting mythological scenes from ancient Greece.

The Foam Sprite

Lamia

Ulysses and the Sirens

Il Fiorno e la Stella del Tramonto

Study for Autumn

Insomnia

The nights would not let me sleep;
the daylight blinded me.
I am left to stagnate, vegetate
and to regress.

Purge my mind from skin to bones,
disrobe me from it:

for such thoughts I have;

of the grotesque and the deplorable
that would consume me whole and alive.

Would that I could be empty breasted again -
breathe freely as though the particles
of air would not choke me to death.
And my heart of flesh and blood
does not weigh like gold.

Yet the hellish din would abide, issuing
from lips burned black of thirst
to murmur the most egregious words
from which rang the ugly truth.

The Fall

I'm plummeting. Through a depth that only nightmare can fathom. An emptiness so perfect we can't conceive of. And I'm falling fast.

Event Horizon

(noun) - the point of no return where escape is impossible

Happy Birthday, Love

Darling, what more can I say that I have not said thousands of times over? That I love you? That I've always loved and will always love you?

Truth be told, I fell in love with you because of your darkness. Not your curly auburn hair or the soft brown eyes or the Cupid out of Caravaggio looks, though it certainly helped. No, it was is the darkness that had drawn me to you - like moth to a fire. And what draws me is that, reveling in the darkness as you are, you've never been overwhelmed in it like Nicolas had been. There's this quiet smoldering pain that illuminates the darkness all the more. My dark prince, you built me a castle of Cimmerian shade and hid me in layers upon layers of insulating gloom. In the sanctuary of the crepuscule and in your protective arms I am snug and secure as never before.

My omnipresent guiding angel, you've always been there to lead me through life with answers. Answers that I need but could never voice. These are the doubts and the fear that haunt me night and day. These are the questions that break me down and eat me up from the insides. And there is that tragedy that no one seems to understand. As Melchior so perfectly puts it: there's no one to see who can see to my soul. You help me discover who I am and isn't that one of the greatest essence of love? To find yourself through love?

You swing from periods of hedonistic denial of a higher power to bouts of zealotry but there is no mistaking the passion in your soul. You're enshrouded in your own anguish but it doesn't overwhelm; rather it ebbs and throbs in harmony, like the pulsing of a heart. You sometimes lose yourself and it is in those times of vulnerability that I ache for you all the more.

I could love you with an ardence that could burn us both to cinders and yet I could love you like the gentle waves lapping at the shore. Sometimes it feels as if my heart is brimming and overflowing with love that I couldn't contain anymore and yet I would go on the next day, at perfect harmony with love again. I could love you to the point of delirium and in that moment of hysteria I found the ephemeral peace.

Who are you to stir such emotions in me? Yet, even when I ask this question I know the answer, know it indisputably as you might know it.

It seems that of all the languages in the world, there is nothing that expresses as much as these words: I love you. It has always been love, pure and simple, intricate and divine; and there is nothing more nor less to it.

Happy 531st Birthday!

Love always and forever,
Sheryl.

Le Tre Madri

So after fretting so much about what I'm going to dress up as for Halloween, I finally got it. I'm going to be Mater Tenebrarum, literal translation Mother of Darkness but more commonly known as Lady of Darkness.

Okay, so basically it's the story of The Three Mothers, who are three sisters who created the art of witchcraft in the early 11th century. They are extremely powerful and evil and are often thought to be Death personified. The eldest and wisest is Mater Suspiriorum, Lady of Sighs aka The Black Queen. The second sister is Mater Lachrymarum, Lady of Tears, most beautiful of the three. And the youngest sister is Mater Tenebrarum, Lady of Darkness, most cruel of the three.

I've got most of the makeup figured out, but I still need a long black dress. So anyone, if you have, pleaaaassee. =) Gosh, I'm so excited! This is going to be one of my last Halloweens here and it's gotta be awesome.

Lyrics of Mater Tenebrarum, courtesy of my favourite death metal band, Theatre des Vampires:
But the third sister, who is also the youngest !
Hush ! Whisper whilst we talk of her !
Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live ; but within that kingdom all power is hers.
She droops not ; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance.
She is the defier of God. She is also the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides.
Deep lie the roots of her power ; but narrow is the nation that she rules.
And her name is Mater Tenebrarum - Our Lady of Darkness.