playing

love minus zero

listening to this and trying not to miss summers past.

breathing

some recent writings.

Casie held onto a quote from the only book she had read since meeting Adam. “Youth can handle its failures; it can wake from its botched love experiments wound-licked by its own survival mechanism--that there would be something else around the next corner. The survival mechanism of those who have lost youth: laziness, habit, the fear of falling down.” She read this a few hours after getting off the phone with him. Lying on the futon that her mother made up in the guest bedroom, the left side of her body being swallowed by the trench that marked the center of the bed, these words struck her as being particularly relevant to their relationship. Adam was thirty-nine, and had been in three long term relationships from his youth onward. When talking to Casie, he frequently referred to these women by numbers; the six year, the twelve year and finally the four year. As he spoke, these digits pierced through to the pit of Casie’s stomach like a switchblade, removed themselves, and then hung above her, watching as she squirmed and bled out atop his wine-stained bedsheets. She knew two of his past girlfriends by first name, and his insistence on referring to them as the culmination of their years together seemed malicious and spiteful. In the damp sheets that caught every bead of sweat and secretion through their summer, these numbers served as a validation of his experience over hers. 

Casie had thought she was in love on numerous occasions, took it back on several others, and said it out loud once. At twenty-four, she had a string of brief encounters, each still surging through her veins in bursts of blue and green, none of which had outlasted her current relationship with Adam, which had somehow managed to barrel it’s way through to the start of a new season. Leaves left their branches sporadically, as the heat of the summer lurked in the moist creases behind their knees, and in the armpit he once kissed. If Casie were completely honest, she would admit that they had only made it to September, and everything that followed was drunken and sentimental fumbling, two bodies digging into one another as life and new lovers tugged at their feet. Hanging up her phone on the morning before Thanksgiving however, she chose denial. Their bodies hadn’t touched in nearly a week and a half-when he kneeled between her legs and gripped tightly around her waist, ears listening to the sound of her heavy breaths and brown curls catching the beginnings of tears, her lips pressing his forehead. As they said another goodbye that morning, and he once again left their fate to her, she again never felt so close. 

He had begun using the word polyamorous, which Casie thought to be a cheap trick used by his rational components; condensing all fears, doubts and lust into an easily definable word was like coming to a duel unarmed. To her, it read as forfeit. For Adam, who woke up alone that Sunday morning, the putrid mix of soaked in alcohol and two days with out showering hovering above him, it was survival. Casie hadn’t minded this smell of hash and liquor that settled into Adam’s skin regularly, and had a fondness for the scent’s own leap to her as they fucked away their hangovers.

tumbling

image by hugh lippe via hobo magazine

It was in September of her twenty-forth year that January set out on an acquisition. The gains of her journey were immaterial, nothing like the pockets of gold protagonists before her had sought after. The precedence by which she judged everything else hung like a heavy smoke for minutes, only to camouflage itself into our lungs and feet. She coughed this up in the shower, and tickled it with her toes at the end of his bed. She marked her life with routine. She charted the sporadic within the mundane, creating great loops and tunnels through which her daily thoughts weaved. In her twenty-third year, around late November,  January woke in the early hours of a Monday to the sound of his woe. This continued into late December, where by the sun’s early dimming she would already lie in anticipation, waiting to describe again the route to her doorstep to his drunken fingers. Some Mondays his phantom cries echoed through her dreams. On one such night, she answered his call, and dreamt of herself falling back to sleep. While she slept, he arrived, and removed her door from it’s hinges. He walked through the dimly lit living room and kitchen (illuminated by the light she left on for him every seventh day in the front room), and with a quick thump to his head on her door frame, entered her bedroom. When she awoke in her dream, he told January that he had taken the hinges off her door, and she saw it leaning against the cinderblock wall. When she awoke in the morning, his vanished figure told her he had never been there, and the door she left unlocked had blown open. The December breeze had frosted the soles of her feet. 

twenty-three

photos by cody-leigh bond

January September wished she was twenty-three again. When she was twenty-three she would let herself collapse into heart. The upturned leaves smiled at her twenty-three year old face. Each and every time she awoke to a new caveat face, she would do one of two things. Wistful hours staring at the patterns made by oaks, or, depending on the season, weeks of slumber until new faces began to dance between the ingenious smoke of sidewalks. The trivial forces which caused the same ascension to crested carved ridges (or allowed her to sleep until late afternoon) all seemed acceptable at twenty-three. Of course there was some grace between the turning of a year, and the change about her didn't occur strictly by temporal conventions. In around a week's time however, the acceptances developed in her twenty-third year were swept clean out of her ears. Swirling ribbons in the July air. 

a shift in shapes

A lovely Wornette gave me this skirt her mom thrifted on Tuesday, and I couldn't wait to wear it. I had been looking for something in a print exactly like this all summer, so it's funny that it fell into my hands the way it did. I also had an urge to cut off my hair, and this was the result. I had wanted it a bit shorter, but am enjoying the change regardless.

valley of the dolls

Last Sunday I received this lovely gift from my bestest friend, Lindsay. This box was full of amazing little trinkets, all themed Valley of the Dolls. It was the perfect mx of dark humour (the canister below is filled with vodka, and the earrings came in a tiny box full of pills- tylenol I assure you), practicality (a new lipstick is always needed), and whimsical softness. Also, I am slowly but surely building my vintage slip collection, and this one is such a stunning addition.

pressed flowers

I took these photos this morning in the lovely house I have been sleeping in. Sometimes it can be wonderful waking up in a new and unfamiliar space (especially when it's basically your dream home). Spending the evening in my own apartment has been nice though, and I feel like I'm  finally getting some projects out of the way. The headdress is something I stitched together the evening before, and I'm hoping to make a few variations on  it within the next week for guests to wear at my Birthday party. After I'm through with them, I was thinking about selling them in my Etsy shop, so let me know if you're at all interested.

the lover I can call my own

yes to showers of light, sweeping away dead leaves, flower boxes, afternoon drinks that lead to evening adventures, boys turning into girls, la belle personne, new flowers waiting to be planted, and tiny amounts of honesty.

I love you like a mountain

These are some photos I took this weekend at a railroad track behind my house. It was so lovely out (finally) that my shoulders got reddened in the sun. The rest of the weekend I spent watching Boardwalk Empire, eating Easter treats, and letting ghosts walk in and out of my room.

bruises

Lately I'm dreaming of places where I knew photographs once were. I scratch my fingers on the wall where I know the frame resides, feel nothing, and I keep scratching. In waking it doesn't end. My actions scare me, and render me worthless. I allow myself to be disposable. I run away from the ghosts on the street, and in the night run naked to their beds. The bridge of my nose is cut and bruised from cement, and I look at it in the mirror thinking I deserve as much. In a few days the bruise will be yellow and I will be naked in bed again, longing for someone to have the patience to love me.

Ignore the calls in the middle of the night and see me clothed in daylight.

photographs borrowed  from ryanmcginely.com

my heart in a silver cage

This weekend had too many unexpected and unwelcome run ins, but was salvaged (adorably so) by 6am Sunday morning. These are just some lovely treasures I picked up at an estate sale this past weekend.

I don't think I've taken the hat off yet, except maybe to sleep. I get to be in a cute photoshoot for a lovely magazine called Dandyhorse this week, and am too nervous. Wish me luck x.x.x

I turn my head up to the sky

The back of this sweater is such a treat, but I must return it to it's owner soon, so I couldn't resist taking some photos of it. This past week was a little rocky, but in the end worked out for the best. Stripes in bed, afternoon indulgences, board games, and double stripes at a farewell meeting. Hopefully this is the start of a giant shift. gahhhh light-hearted posts to come, please x.x.x

You always break the kindest hearts

This Valentines has be wrought with a little confusion, glittery card making parties, aching, breakfast confessions, honesty, a man with a decision to make, and white see-through blouses. I hosted a Valentines making craft night for a Worn party, which led to silly choices, spice girls and fur dress ups. I ended up where I wanted to be, which was lovely, but complicated. The next morning (afternoon) was breakfast with my dearest friend Andrew, which is always full of laughter, gossip and love stories. Later tonight I get to wear read and sing it all out at Hearbreak Karaoke. Happy Valentines Lovelies xo