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♥ precious.
la bella vita;

Cara

loves: black and white photography. poetry. vintage stores. thunderstorms. good ambience. fairytales. disneyworld. black kohl and fuschia lipstick. red and purple skittles. turquoise beads. icing but not cakes. might-have-beens. the dandy warhols. within temptation. automatic loveletter. mediaeval baebes. troy. interview with a vampire. the oc. making 11:11 wishes. purple glitter. mermaids. my-little-ponies. magic.

expertise: melodramaticks. eyeliner. laughing. goodbyes. hanging in there.

♥ music on, world off.
shh.

soundtrack to life.

♥ scream(?).
live.

♥ past .
instant time travel

December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010

♥ adieu .
set them free

AMANDA
ANDRE
ASH
DEB
ELEMM
07IP04!
08IP04!
JOSH
KAT
LISA
QIU
RENJEAN


♥ credits .
thankyouverymuch

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Monday, February 15, 2010
hello, old friend. 4:42 AM



You saved my life he says   I owe you everything.

You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just get gone, but he’s

           relentless,

keeps saying  I owe you, says  Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood,

you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours.

          But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak,

I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself, I say.

You keep saying  I owe you, I owe… but you say the same thing every time.

          Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk.

Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always saving

and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt.

          Don’t bother.

You never mean it anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed.

There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages, I’m bleeding,

          I’m not just making conversation.

There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western, Henry,

it’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyard out of the bone white afternoon.

          It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario

and we keep doing it, Henry, keep saying  until we get it right… 

but we always win and we never quit, see, we’ve won again, here we are at the place

          where I get to beg for it

where I get to say  Please, for just one night, will you lay down next to me, we can leave our

clothes on, we can stay all buttoned up?

          or will I say

Roll over and let me fuck you till you puke, Henry, you owe me this much, you can indulge me

this at least, can’t you?  but we both know how it goes. I say  I want you inside me

           and you hold my head underwater, I say   I want you inside me

and you split me open with a knife. I’m battling monsters, half-monkey, half-tarantula,

I’m pulling you out of the burning buildings and you say  I’ll give you anything.

          But you never come through.

Give me bullet power. Give me power over angels. Even when you’re standing up

you look like you’re lying down, but will you let me kiss your neck, baby? Do I have to

          tie your arms down?

Do I have to stick my tongue in your mouth like the hand of a thief, like a burglary

like it’s just another petty theft? It makes me tired, Henry. Do you see what I mean?

          Do you see what I’m getting at?

You swallowing matches and suddenly I’m yelling  Strike me. Strike anywhere.

 I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you’ve taken something out of me, and I have to search

          my body for the scars, thinking

Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?   I know you want me to say it, Henry,

it’s in the script, you want me to say  Lie down on the bed, you’re all I ever wanted

          and worth dying for too

but I think I’d rather keep the bullet this time. It’s mine, you can’t have it, see,

I’m not giving it up. This way you still owe me, and that’s

          as good as anything.

You can’t get out of this one, Henry, you can’t get it out of me, and with this bullet

lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because

           it’s all I have,

because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your

slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this

          bullet inside me

‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth. Don’t you see, it’s like

I’ve swallowed your house keys, and it feels so natural, like the bullet was already there,

          like it’s been waiting inside me the whole time.

Do you want it? Do you want anything I have? Will you throw me to the ground

like you mean it, reach inside and wrestle it out with your bare hands?

          If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.

Do you know how it ends? Do you feel lucky? Do you want to go home now?

There’s a bottle of whiskey in the trunk of the Chevy and a dead man at our feet

          staring up at us like we’re something interesting.

This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard,

and make a wish.


- Wishbone, Richard Siken.



hello, old friend. 1:17 AM




"there's a place i know
if you're looking for a show
where they go hardcore
and there's glitter on the floor

there's a place downtown
where the freaks all come around
it's a hole in the wall
it's a dirty free for all"




Saturday, February 6, 2010
hello, old friend. 6:18 AM

MM WHATCHA SAY;
----

Honestly- how could anything today be all that bad after getting front row tickets to Imogen Heap? (!!!)

March will roll around.
And seeing Imi live with Ash and WL, less than TWO METRES AWAY FROM MY FACE with all her electronik magick and dreamfinger sorcery and tectonic warble is going to be a spiritual experience.

I saw E.P today, and it didn't feel like Girl, Interrupted.
Which is a relief.

I am doing...great, and not so good; so averaged out I suppose that makes me okay.

I'M ALL RIGHT IN THE DAYTIME

And tomorrow I'm going to
going to
going to
.

I miss Boston already, though!
It feels odd not waking up in the morning, prodding Angie to get the wakeup phone call, sifting through my mess of a suitcase and somehow managing to locate black stockings and eyeliner, and then turning up the volume on The Virgins while the shower runs. And then heading downstairs with Lisa to get our ritualistic morning cinnamon dolce latte; before navigating up the escalator in impossible patent black heels and going for the first Legal Comm session of the day.
Hell- I almost MISS the conferences that stretched on till crazy 1145 at night.
Followed by a hot bath, Lisa and I in our breezy Indonesian pyjamas, and then random people heaping into random rooms and collapsing on beds after much laughter and long talk at 2AM to sleep till 7 the next morning.

And I miss the general hilarity.

Dora was upset, cuz she left the softballs she got for Kai as prezzies back in the Sheraton.

Dor: I left them back in the Sheratonnnn.
Lisa: ...You left Kai's balls in Boston?
Cara: Party in the USA!

Honourable Delegation '10. I love y'all like Miley loves her sweet nibblets.
Yeehaw.

Am currently working on my H3 Lit proposal.
Primary texts: Looking for Alaska, On The Road, and The Secret History.
On The Road has to be one of my favourite new books. I love it, but barely understand it, and yet the more I flip back through the pages, the more I feel like we get each other. In a raw, ephemeral way.
Do I make sense?
No?
That's okay- it happens a lot.

But it's like there's just pages upon swimming pages of beautiful words- words you grasp at, even though you don't understand. Because you get this feeling that if you could just get past their raw, spirit-soaked madness; then behind them would be the infinity scroll shining clear and golden and undeniable.



On another note- ...TWENTY MINUTES MORE.
Where are you, sharp-talking distraction? Hurry hurry get over here.

69 72 00 55 15 18. 7809343408. 145901!

I miss you, yesterday boy,
and I've realized that the word "yesterday" is imperative.





I wrote a song today, and it had the simplest words I'd ever written.
But I liked it.


Wednesday, February 3, 2010
hello, old friend. 3:17 AM


Today, Lisa and I went to the bookstore. I love the way people stare at us on the streets when we go out- love the juxtaposition of light and dark, crystal-like and tawny, wide eyed and deep lashed, her clear mirror eyes and mine the ones he said he once fell into and never came back.


And I got books.

So many books.

I know...I'm such a geek; but what can you do? At least I'm the good kind.


Lisa got George Orwell's 1984 and we both found the rare prized Looking For Alaska(!) and I have Jack Kerouac's On The Road and came away, too, with an impulse buy- Patti Smith's Auguries of Innocence. Gravitated towards it while my eyes were fingering the shelves and I found it and picked it up and leafed through it .


And then I knew I couldn't leave it behind. Because the pages whispered and the words throbbing, knowing, waiting in them were sacrilege and darkly sacred all at once and they were murmuring my name in devilsbells and I couldn't leave them behind.


oh, this word madness. oh, this catharsis of ink and story and bone.


I have scorpions on my ears and I will sting you for every lie you whisper.

I will lift cool, clear walls and maroon you, you with your impeccable ideals and your right compass and your debatable arrow; like a one-man Atlantis/

will hear you as you sink, the thousand voices of the thousand people we could have been rising in dreadful cacophony as the water rises over your godhead and i will laugh/


I will lose myself in the words of poets and beatboys and the Madman Who Saw God.

will lie on tawny shores and let the waves wash over every line of my body and into my lungs until when I sing it will be seawater and when I speak they will hear the voice of Poseidon in a great and rushing roar of pain.


I will swallow the great terrible darkness
but sing wild and dreadful hallelujahs to a God who killed me over an altar, whispering "die to yourself"
and when I finally learn to listen I shall rise from the cinders of Abraham, of Isaac ringing with all the fear and all the light and all the understanding of Tomorrow--

he will call me phoenixchild:
i, laughing, will rocket skywards with waxen wings ablaze.









Monday, January 25, 2010
hello, old friend. 5:16 AM

"and so I go, into the great Perhaps"
----


There are many kinds of love in the world.
And when you find that one is not for you; you learn to lean- gently, tentatively- on the others.

This love is good.
God has given me beautiful, beautiful friends. You know who you are- thank you, all of you, for your warmth and support and the tender hands you're using to hold me up. 

Last night was horrible. I gave up the one thing I had tried to hold onto, and then and only then did they take me, crying softly shoulders shaking, into their bed. 
I don't know whether to feel comforted or repulsed.
And yet with all the drifting loneliness, the sudden, occasional rushing of air from my ribcage and the currents behind empty lids
there is a sad, sweet sense of relief.

At least the way now is clear.
I would have fought every inch of the thorny road, 
but at least now the way is clear, and that is a small mercy.

You can breathe again. I don't want you to hurt any more.

Who knows where we stand, in our Book of Days?
Maybe One Day. Maybe never. Maybe Neverland. Maybe Everland, maybe Evermore.



You and I know we loved.
And that is all that needs to be written.







Wednesday, January 20, 2010
hello, old friend. 5:33 AM



I'm not used to the awkward silences.
The way his eyes grow cold around me, then sad, then cold again. 
I'm not used to not curling up on his pillow at night, and talking like a seven year old about my day. 
I'm not used to not being grumbled at for kissing his shoulder when we hug, just because it's just the right height for being kissed.
I'm not used to not being his favourite, even though he tries to hide it and pretend he doesn't play favourites.
I'm not used to swinging one languid thigh from my chair and glancing at him from the sides of my eyes, like what we're talking about doesn't hurt.

...But I've chosen where I stand.

And it's not his1 side, or his2 side. 

It's my side. And this stand is all the things I should have said a long time ago. 
Tantrums don't work, and screaming doesn't work. Noise is overrated, so I'm going to stand here in my metaphorical wheatfield and be silent and look up at the sky with quiet eyes. fall asleep with flowers in my hands. 


electric gingerheaded boy, last night: "...nothing lasts. and the truth of that devastates me."





on the plus side, i had purple icecream today. 
and my friends made me laugh. 
and yesterday i wrote a song about a mermaid and a man, and it was good.







Monday, January 18, 2010
hello, old friend. 7:07 AM

But in the garden of simple where all of us are nameless you were never anything but beautiful to me/
and, you know, they never really owned you./
You just carried them around/
and then one day you put 'em down/
and found your hands were free.
---

It is 11:11 and I'm wondering if wishes count as prayers. 
Does God answer them? Or do they all go to the Tooth Fairy? Or Santa Claus? Britain's all snowed out, so there's no way the North Pole's gonna be getting any reception. 

Thank you for the awfullychocolate today, DWL. And the letters, and the presents. I love you guys!
I don't care if eighteen doesn't feel like eighteen; at least I've got good love.

Whitby, pushing for answers: So... (scritches away on whiteboard)...MAN created MACHINE. And what does MACHINE create that MAN needs? MAN needs.....?
Class: ...
Whitby: Oh come on, you lot. 
Class: ....
Whitby, getting desperate: It starts with a T. 
Lisa: Uh. 
Cara: Uh. 
Whitby, getting reaaaally desperate: "...T....One syllable. T..."
Lisa, tentatively: ..T..in?
Cara, tentatively: ...Toys?
Whitby: *headdesk*


Am currently: working on a SEA History essay outline, catching up with an old friend, drinking hot, sweet tea and listening to the velvet underground. Altogether bearable. If I keep living like this, one day by one day; I AM going to survive this year, dammit.

And on the note of survival- congratulations on making it to 18, Lis. :D 
I've already written you a longass letter, so. I'll keep this short, but you know I love you. 

I wrote a song, today, and I'm glad. It's been ages since I've been able to write anything...though I'm starting to doubt the use of "writer" as a title, seeing as how my pen only ever moves properly when I've got museblood in my veins. So maybe the term "mouthpiece" would be better. 
Mouthpiece to what?
...I don't know. But I kinda wish whatever it was would talk a bit more. I've missed writing.

This is a short, choppy little entry- but hey- it's a start.

...Baby steps. To this. To everything. To now.
Here we go.