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POOR THINGS

Yorgos Lanthimos & Atsushi Nishijima. 🎞: Kodak Portra 400

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Emma Stone in Poor Things, (2024).

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Natalie Dormer for Fashion Magazine (2016)

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mess + taylor swift lyrics

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⟣ᩨ ｡✱ ᥬ♥︎ 🍝𓋼 𝗵ᦕᩨ𝕝𝕝𝗈ᩚ̼ ⟬✾︴▓⃞👘𓆇｡䕽ଽ ◊◞ ᘚ𝕖ືω͡ ρ✼᥍̼𝘁 ￣￣🧀❔// 𝕷𝕚𝐤ᩚ𝗲 ★ 𝖗̆𝐞𝗯𝗹𝗼̼ᩧ❡ ȣ ☨˚ꔛ彡🦔ͼ𝗼𝗹𝗈ຼ𝖗ຣᩚ..𝕡ܶ𝐨𝗲𑄚 ⚋⚋§፨⌘ ꒦ ༒ 🀄

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illicit affairs // Hits Different // All You Had To Do Was Stay // Dancing With Our Hands Tied (all lyric connections)

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I’m not much for dancing but for you I did

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#me avoiding my problems (Credit: domcielak on TikTok)

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Taylor Swift performing August at The Eras Tour on March 17th, 2023

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Lord, save me, my drug is my baby I’ll be usin’ for the rest of my life  

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You don’t understand I love her

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The Lavender Haze video is out now. There is lots of lavender. There is lots of haze. There is my incredible costar Laith Ashley who I absolutely adored working with. This was the first video I wrote out of the 3 that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70’s fever dream. Hope you like it 😁

taylor.lnk.to/lavenderhazemusicvideo

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Right Where You Left Me

Happy New Year @taylorswift​ ! I have a special gift for you to welcome 2023.

Often, songs are inspired by stories. In this case however, a song opened the doors of my imagination. Your song. I hope you will enjoy this little novel inspired by your song Right Where You Left Me from Evermore. More will come, as your words ignite a whole world of stories, waiting to be told and told again !

With much love,

Cécile R.

Right Where You Left Me : A Novel

The whirring of the coffee machine invades the café. This noise punctuates my days, breaking the silence of the café-restaurant where I've been working for now... oh god, almost 3 years now. In the centre of Brooklyn, the place is appreciated for its muffled atmosphere, far from the coffee chains where gathers people in a hurry. As the hot coffee slowly drips down, I observe people walking through the fogged up window: heads down, walking quickly through the freezing cold of the city, hats pulled over their ears. « At least I don't have to deal with this humidity », I think to myself as I bring his cup to the customer who doesn't deign looking at me.

Behind my back, I hear the door opening up. As I look up, I meet the eyes of Cindy, my colleague. A vague signe of her chin, eyes barely widen, confirms what I already know.

There she is again.

I turn around to see her silhouette slipping into her usual corner. She sits down, the red bricks of the wall at her back, her white, frozen hands resting on her lap. She stares at the dark wooden table. As usual. I sigh.

"Coffee macchiato ?"

She flinches slightly at my approach. She stares at me for a while with her big doe eyes. Hazel eyes, a little washed out.

"Yes, that's it." A pause. "Thank you."

I walk back to the bar, half-raising my eyes to the sky, and immediately regretting it. I have nothing against her; unlike most of the customers she is always polite, gives discreet smiles, asks nothing but to sit quietly, warm and cosy. And yet I don't like her. The truth is that she makes me feel sorry for her, and that is very unpleasant. She is shrouded in a sadness that creeps up on us like a shadow along the floor. As I prepare her order, Cindy joins me on the other side of the bar. With a nudge she draws my attention, and again nods towards the one she calls, somewhat rudely, "the sad girl". As the latter looks glances outside, her lips pursed, a tear rolls down her cheek.

I can't help but feel a twinge of sorrow. With her pale oval face, her well-defined dark eyebrows, reminiscent of the brown of her hair pulled back into a high bun, her straight nose reddened at the tip, ending on rosy lips, she evokes a 19th century portrait. Her posture, always delicate and dignified, gives her the air of a baroness. She is so different from the first night I saw her here. It was during my first month, I was still on trial. It made me nearly lose my job. Today she solely looks like the shadow of what she was then.

I look at her and feel as if I am looking at the shattered pieces of a broken crystal. She has comeback from time to time since, like a ghost haunting the scene of the deed. Frozen forever. Yet I see her again that night. Her reddened cheeks with cold and delight, her shiny eyes, drawing stares. At the time, I was not yet resigned and jaded by this repetitive job. I thought it would only be temporary, not that I would spend three years of my life there. I was focused on doing well, on keeping this vital job to pay my bills while I studied. I remember the bright smile she gave me when she came in: I was completely baffled. It annoyed Cindy, who was trying to teach me the different programs on the dishwasher. She was accompanied by this tall, lanky guy, whom she looked at as if he were the only person in the room.

They sat at the same table.

I was managing the room that night, so I only caught glimpses of what was taking place before our eyes. It was like watching a train derailing in slow motion. As the evening wore on, her smile cracked, before fading into a frown. Her whole body seemed to be stretched like a blade to the sky as she tried to put on a brave face. As I cleared the table, I heard him say, "I'm sorry, I need to focus on me right now. I really, really like you, but I can't right now..." Then he reached out to put his hand on hers just as mine was retrieving the salt shaker : our arms collided, sending the shaker flying. It crashed to the ground in a cloud of white powder, and in a vain attempt to catch it, I dragged the used glasses piled on my tray after it. It all happened very quickly, ending in a shrill din whose silent aftermath was all the more deafening.

The whole restaurant had come to a standstill temporarly, all eyes on the scene that had just unfolded. Cindy had snapped me out of my stupor by bringing me a broom and shovel while grumbling about the klutzs she had to deal with. The world was on back in motion. Gathering the scattered pieces, I watched from the corner of my eye as the boy gave her a big, comforting smile, and she smiled back at him while shaking her head absentely. By the time I emptied the shovel into the bin behind the bar, he was gone. She was there, just as she sits today, staring into space.

***

I watch the flakes slipping gently into the night. A tear escapes me and runs down my cheek, and I feel the frost etching itself into its trail. It is true that it is always the same boy who serves me when I come back here. Marc, according to the label on his apron. But I never imagined that he could recognise me and anticipate my order. I didn't think I had return this often. I feel pathetic. It's been almost three years since this story ended. And yet, in spite of myself, I find myself thinking about it again and retracing my steps. I feel like I'm repeating the same patterns in a loop, and I always end up back in that café, at that same table. Wondering what it would have been if only one thing had been different.

Break-ups happen every day, between friends, between lovers. So why am I stuck in this moment? I cling to our story, as short as it was, and to all that I had projected into it. I've tried since then to meet other people, to continue my life, to move forward. Sometimes I even forgot about him. But never completely. I would so much like to not grasp these memories that haunt me. He wasn't perfect, far from it. Who leaves someone over dinner without any warning? The fact is, I didn't find our complicity with anyone else. I was so happy to be with him. I was already visualising a whole host of shared moments, our next trips together, escapes to the mountains, discovering his favourite songs, talking to him about my current reading. We understood each other so well.... I had never felt accepted and really seen beforehand. I come back here because I can't believe that our story ended so prematurely.

When he told me it was over, it was as if he had thrust a dagger into my soul. Something inside me shattered. My sanity, evidently. He didn't even use that word, "over". He started by explaining that he couldn't, "right now", as if it was only momentary. Then he suggested that he had met someone with whom he felt something special, and that he had to see where it could go. Then he left. He went on with his life, is probably married, has a family. I see him preparing for Christmas, hand in hand with his partner. Setting up lighted tinsels with his children. Wrapping toys in bright and colourful gift wrap, all smiles.

And I'm still here. Time has no effect on me. I gather dust in the corner of this café, without a single wrinkle. I am still 23 years old and my whole life’s ahead of me.

He left me there. In front of the shards of my shattered illusions. It had made Marc the waiter knocked over his tray. In the silence that followed their explosion, I distinctly heard one of my hairpins hit the floor. The atmosphere was so tense that objects were being propulsed all around. It must be it. In this electrified space-time I was struck by lightning. Marking that moment as the turning point of my life. The moment when its trajectory was deviated forever. Where I missed the boat. Where I couldn't get it together. So yes, from time to time I return to the scene of the incident. I try to understand how I got there, to grasp the elusive. I like to go back and rewind, change the script. The dust flies, the debris sticks together. You are there, back in front of me. I am still the one you want.  And you stay.

End.

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“I need you to hear me when I say that there is no career path free of negativity. If you are met with resistance, that probably means you're doing something new. If you're experiencing turbulence or pressure, that probably means you're rising. And there might be times when you put your whole heart and soul into something and it is met with cynicism or skepticism. You cannot let that crush you. You have to let it fuel you, because we live in a world where anyone has the right to say anything that they want about you at any time, but just please remember that you have the right to prove them wrong.”

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Taylor Swift accepting the Global Icon Award at the 2021 BRIT Awards.

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taylor swift [brits 2021] icons

like/reblog if you save or © @katebridgs ღ

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Down the stairs, I was there, I was there Sacred prayer, I was there, I was there