Aren't these book clutches just to die for? The term "book bag" has been redefined by Olympia Le-Tan, who was surrounded by her father's wall of books as a child. When she moved out of her family home, Olivia began collecting first-edition books from the 40s and 50s.
     I'm completely in love with the Lolita one—you'd often hear me quoting Lolita's first page, only beginning to fumble after "Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did..." But as exceptional as it is, it's not without an equally exceptional price.

Hollow

     "Have you ever loved someone as much as you hated them?"
     "Why?"
     I've never been able to understand why I felt so much hatred for those I loved. Can it even be called hatred at all, or even love at all? Perhaps it has always been fear — fear of bones and ashes, of what came before and what will come after. Lying in bed, with the curtains drawn and the city lights blinding, I'd whisper to myself, "Never again, never again, never again..." only to find that the words had seeped into my pillow in the night. Hollow with empty promises, it sagged like skin stripped of its bones. I don't want to be loved, I'd tell myself, because I knew how much I did.
     Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does.

     The list of things I've never finished continues to grow as a raw reminder of my dissatisfaction. I thought I could use a bit of help.
     We'll see how it goes from here.

 

     The irony of the roaring 20s. If there was one thing I gained from reading The Great Gatsby, it would be this: That the death of a dream is always a silent one — it escapes ever so slowly, leaving behind the echo of its pulse, the memory of the echo, and soon the ghost of the memory. It always unravels incessantly, leaving in its wake trails of itself while the white spaces that separate them grow persistently more vast. But we sink deeper and deeper into the depths of what once was, and as the white stretch of time continues to brighten, we hold on to whatever we can — the memory of a memory.

      "I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

Symphony

     Nighttime—a symphony of sounds. It’s strange how the dry brushing of skin of skin, a sandpaper rhythm, can so clearly paint the picture of your sleeping form, the fluttering eyelids of dreaming and the soft movement of breathing. If I lived entirely by sound, the world would seem so much more beautiful. I would no longer mistake sunset for dawn. I could lace myself between each incision of sound, stretch amidst the silence that waits there, holding my breath to match the slow pattern of yours. 

Omen

      Today I saw the world saturated with golden light, in complete contrast with its usual grey pallor, weighed down by the millions of forgotten words and lost hours that cling to the nape of your neck like the perfume of a hot day. Like an omen carried by the wind, I somehow knew it could not be breached. I melted into the unnatural silence, comforted by the unspoken fact that no one would be searching for me—they couldn’t: I’d entered a world that was all my own, yet at the same time a world that would never belong to me. I was suddenly aware of the breathing silence, of a realm that would never to cease to exist, with or without the addition of my beating heart. I heard the aria of the trees, the bells of laughter, the shadowy lurk of sorrow, the faraway pulse of rain—sounds I’d always heard but never quite listened to. I’d found the place where dreams thrive. It could not be seen on any map, but rather, through them.


P.S. I do apologize if my blog has been lacking in photographs. To me, though, it's filled with them. I hope my writing doesn't bore you.

The world of opposites

      I thought that the coolness of the wind must come from the ice in our veins. My lungs had often detected the emptiness of its slow ballet through the trees, but not so much as when the breeze kissed my skin, summoning my blood to the surface in the form of a rose. I’d marvel at those winter mornings when we all looked like pale sunsets, smiling our elegiac smiles of shared sorrow.

      I never quite understood the world of opposites, how something so biting could give birth to such warmth. I still don’t. All I know is the fluttering of our hearts is more than enough to draw up a storm primed to consume us all.