glimmer of her ruin

always considered all too well 10 minute version the soul of red tv. and there's no denying the fact that it indeed is. but no body functions with just a soul, there's the need of a heart too. and that heart is neither i knew you were trouble or we're never getting back together, or red or everything has changed. it's nothing new. always considered exile the best duet of taylor, followed by end game. but i can proudly say now, nothing new is the best one. it's like a twin sister to tloas title track. only difference being this sounds like a 3 am spiral and the latter being the redemption arc of that girl who went through all those thoughts at 3 am.

"how can a person know everything at 18, but nothing at 22?"

i pulled them from my pocket like a vein i once tried to seal,

but those unforgiving wires never ask permission when to feel.

they shivered like old pain, rehearsing its return,

still warm with the friction of every lesson i refused to learn.

with dust from the lining of jeans i’d worn too many days in a row,

soaked in the grime of hours i never meant to bring home.

they collapsed in my palm like a carcass pretending to sleep

white buds, white wire, and loops like arteries that weep.

a coil unspooled like a scream slipping past locked teeth,

and dragged another with it, grief waking what slept beneath.

i paused, thinking maybe the knot had finally blinked,

like a thought you didn’t want to think, and now it’s all you think.

but the loop tightened again, like it had only pretended to give,

and the next twist constricted, as if to remind me how it hurts to live.

like plath with her cheek to the oven’s breathless flame,

the gentler i moved, the crueler the knots became.

i sighed but started again, they kept curling in on themselves,

and my hands were too tired for these quiet, private hells.

i whispered to them, like coaxing a child or a corpse,

and they stiffened in my grip, like secrets dying mid-force.

one section came loose, like a confession slipped too loud,

and another tightened, jealous, like shame pulling back its shroud.

i started to shake. no, not my hands, but the me beneath the skin,

the one that hides in elbows and hoards anger under nails within.

i traced their silent choking, the way they clung and fought,

as if they'd rather strangle than unknot what they’d been taught.

i moved through dense clots of wire, some knots begging to stay,

they laughed like they'd win, in that feral, familiar way.

and isn’t that always the case, what you try to fix refuses the light?

some things like their damage, some knots prefer the fight.

they coiled like relics, bruised with pain i never spoke,

each loop a story, each twist a joke.

by the time they came undone, they weren’t wires anymore, but spine and sin,

slowly becoming tendons of thought, slick with old skin.

i coiled them, not gently, but like sealing a crime scene before cops arrive,

each loop a lie i’d tell in court just to say i survived.

then i shoved them back into the dark they came from,

where they’ll twist again, knot themselves dumb.

wait for me like a bad habit, like a loaded question in the throat

unasked, unanswered, tucked beneath a suicide note.

and then i'll play my favourite track like i hadn’t just survived a war

just tangled cords and a lie and my body on the floor.

i want to scream in sentences.

i want to sob in similes.

i want to make my hurt beautiful enough to understand.

but my fingers stiffen, and my mind stutters

like it’s forgotten the alphabet of pain.

i tell myself:

just write it. just write it.

but all that comes is a faint pressure in my chest,

a noise i can’t spell.

i try to cry it out.

i try to write it down.

i try to bleed it clean.

i flirt with a sentence

it ghosts me mid thought.

i marry a metaphor

we separate by stanza three.

i try.

i try.

i romanticize the trying.

god, i even rhyme about the trying.

i think of plath,

who at least had a way with ovens and metaphors

mine just simmer slowly, no fire, just rot,

like leftovers no one admits are moldy.

the pen trembles.

the page waits.

my hand knows the story but refuses to sign its name.

i mouth the sentences in my head

but they dissolve before they touch the page.

it’s like forgetting how to breathe mid sentence,

like my grief has taken grammar hostage.

you might be a night jasmine in their field of roses

they'll pluck you, with heads held high, until one day

you wither and die.

some will tuck you in their diaries,

like an ornamental, not a life that lived,

and passed like a season they never liked

you might be a fairytale in their pragmatic circus

they'll cast evil eyes on you, until one day

you unfold your majestic tragedy, and then

some present bouquets for the leftover grace,

proceed to submit evidence in conferences against you

a girl who fell, then fell apart

and faded like eurydice into the dark

you might be a cygnus in a sky of aquilas

they'll envy your shine, and push you back

like dark clouds veiling daylight

phantoms in the room, and silent fright

they'll leave you blind, and take the cane

leave you to wander like a child lost in a fair.

some might hold your hand,

some might claim to guide

beware the wise men, even a nomad won't step into the tide

you might be love in their hostel of borrowed bodies

they'll adore you, then put aside like a kid

return to the dens where they gamble cynicism

and make deals of how they'll rob innocence from you

so beware when they attack,

it can be dawn or dusk, tea time or dinner

you might laugh in the breeze,

while in some distance they say,

"this is where I throw the dart."

they say fairytales exist

it's a beautiful dream

the needed love and the fantasy scene

but i look on and find it crap

a pipe dream and a total mishap.

that there is nothing like a perfect bliss

that it's just the fleeting moments.

all of this.

a castle built on the beaches sand

oh dear sculptor, it was a foolish hand.

the waves arrive and the tides roll

it all crumbles.

reality takes a toll.

not every lives the story of lizzy and darcy

some become the mia and seb,

love loses to dreams

not every allie gets her noah;

not every tom finds his autumn

long after the time of summer gone.

mum's told me stories, of rapunzel and cinderella

and snow white

their love so capable, it withered all the fight

but i think of that little mermaid

who lost her voice, her love made her wail

i saw the great gatsby yesterday

and saw how hearts make and break

and all of it made so sense as the past left a lasting wake.

i hear them say "i love you forever"

but words alone, can they really hold?

might not know anything, but all i know

is that i look on for a story

that's yet to be told.

few eyes glistened to the girl with teardrops on her guitar

questioning smirks and stares gossiping "will she make it that far?"

a nomadic nerd at seventeen, god forbid she ever turns around

with quiet queries, and dancing dreams,

and fantasies of romeo kneeling to the ground

"but doesn't he belong with me???" " but that was the way i loved him!!!"

oh you fearless girl, hold your heart for days are going to be even more grim.

it wasn't long enough that foolish one had learned her lesson

stood enchanted by the rock guy and his mic hiding the cloaked gun

nineteen was too young to be messed at, but she didn't throw back the blade

long live all the mountains she moved, long live all the magic she made

yet choked herself at the memory of the halo holder she threw in embers

speak now, darling, this time machine doesn't take you back to december

but soon, the ingenue found a better man

wait, she thought she did.

until he turned out to be trouble, until he blew the air out her face

until he burned the very home she thought was her heart's place

but he was only fake f***ing patriarchy until the tragic heroine fell

a home and a red scarf, and a lady who remembers it all too well.

but like they say "everything that happens is for the good"

with a blood so bad, and dreams so wild,

she again came out of the woods

damn money, damn glory, damn all the brewed fame

ain't no way she got everyone filling their blank spaces with her name

bring bottles, bring cans, bring all of your favorite wines

the crown had finally landed on the woman born in 1989.

a twist of fate and phone calls earned a badge spelling cancelled

chose the gate to hiatus when her delicate soul was strangled

the high horsemen fell back as the truth's gear changed to reverse

and the crown again landed on the serpent's head,

whose reputation once had never been worse.

not long enough had the twenty-year dark night prevailed

when daylight seeped through the nets, why was it so delayed?

spelling has always been fun, but they'll call you out for breaking the rule

try to snatch your daylight, ensure your summer couldn't be more cruel

miss americana who painted london all the way too whole

a lover girl in socal, who's bewitched us all body, mind and soul.

locked in homes like an exile we all sang in winter dust

"to hell with the man who ruined one's cardigan,

and another's promising august."

when someone stole her precious lullabies, left her there too numb

when despite seeing her tears ricochet, insolent hearts called her dumb.

and she sat wondering, if she could go to those lakes,

the haven with her muse

where poets go to die when they've got nothing more to lose.

but the string was invisible, yet stronger than never before

someone! go tell the girl, she's going down in folklore.

and whilst the folk celebrated childbirth, she delivered the other twin

hometown seasons and marjorie from above lauding for the fiesty win

no matter how big the crime, it's happening was forever fated

no matter how much the pain, after a while you ain't get to tolerate it

no matter how sad is today, there'll be happiness in seasons all four

no matter how loudly the heart dropped today,

these champagne problems aren't going to live evermore.

dawn slips into dusk, the day passes in a blink

finding herself at 3am wondering in the inescapable labyrinth

looking at those peppermint candies,

friendship bracelets in the racks

they've got to tell some story, or are they merely stacks?

a typhoon of would've, could've, should've, sighing struggles in the fight

but she smiles and sleeps knowing it was just a wrecked midnight.

soon the momentary london vacay abruptly came to an end

leaving an abandoned ship, a ghost, and a broken heart to mend.

screamed in front of the mirror, but dare she could take a tear outside

repeating, "buckle up dear bolter, all your lavish bruises you gotta hide"

for they'll again slam pity, shame, and blame at the fun they see

a tortured poet on her knees, begging to change the prophecy.

she stitched her scars with songs, turned her torment into art,

a phoenix from the ashes with a dove's innocent heart.

they say all's well that ends well, there's no rebuttal to that rule

as the tale ends with the showgirl who's finally got her so high school.

~shiuli.

i wish i could shut up about this, but i can’t. restraint, in my dictionary, is a word without practical application. so here i am again, compelled to speak about a film that quite without asking permission has taken up residence in my mind. 

i watched october in july'23 for the first time and it redefined my sense of what cinema could leave behind. since then i’ve seen more films than i can reasonably count. some were good, some were brilliant, some were devastatingly beautiful. they were fine darts, yes. but none struck that elusive bullseye. none stayed like october did and i subconsciously began to believe none could. but then, two months ago, aftersun happened.

i had trusted paul mescal before, normal people and all of us strangers, his two works of outstanding brilliance (not to say marianne and connell still devastate me) had already proven his capacity for quiet devastation. still, i approached this father-daughter holiday with a polite skepticism. after all, what could possibly be absorbed from a few days in the sun and a camcorder?

apparently, everything.

what i didn’t know was that it wouldn’t just move me, but would slip under my skin so quietly, so gently, that i wouldn’t even realise it until it had already taken root. and now, two months later, i still find myself thinking about calum, and sophie, and that holiday, and the rave, and the camcorder footage. i think about the unspoken weight calum carried, and the way sophie watched him, unknowingly trying to memorise a version of him she could never fully keep. i think about how aftersun is not just about a father and a daughter, but about memory itself. 

and maybe that’s why it lingers the way it does. it doesn’t demand your attention while you’re watching, it earns it in the days, weeks and months that follow. it’s a film about the unsaid, but also about the way the unsaid echoes louder with time. about how the past refuses to stay obediently still, instead reaching forward, altering the present, rearranging the furniture of your memory until you no longer know what is true and what is softened by love. 

and maybe that’s all memory is, learning to live with the people and moments you can’t return to, even when they never really left.