the star of every moment.

Andrei e-mailed another photograph of me from that day the count came to visit us.

Andrei's in love with his camera. says he's gonna be the new Steven Meisel. says I'm to be his muse. says he's gonna show the world true beauty.

"Aurora, you're the star of every moment," he purrs against my skin with the camera two inches from my chest, making his best Andy Warhol imitation.

trapped once more.

the Rovanows are downstairs with the rest of my family, drinking tea in the Giuseppe sofas my mother had imported from Venice last week. mother envies the Rovanows' perfect and well-polished daughters. they've been playing Chopin the whole morning and now mother keeps sending the maid to come and get me, insisting on that I play La Campanella. "Miss, they are all waiting for you," says the maid with a broken English behind my locked door. "Your mother wants you downstairs immediately."

She knows I can't play with an audience. She knows - still she keeps sending the maid to come and get me. "All those piano lessons, Aurora, all those expensive piano lessons - and for what?" she said the last time the Rovanows came over for lunch.

"You should be grateful - do you even realize how much you have?" says my mother, the materialist, but she keeps forgetting that all I ever wanted was to learn how to play the guitar, and that she kept refusing, saying that the guitar certainly wasn't something nice and well-behaved girls wasted their time on.

Merry Christmas everyone
Aurora

drops.

we're currently at Catalena's place, playing under water.

Pina Bausch: 1940-2009.

love

listening to Sigur Rós this morning. this'll be a great day. we'll drink plum wine and take baths together.

on how to stare at your plate.

blouse, Hermès. rose, from mother's garden.

pointless dinner party after dinner party.

child, you're strange, whispers the baroness's eyes across the dinner table, but I'd rather be strange than forever ordinary.
the evening progresses; I sit immobile as my sisters charm the rest of our guests.

at the Roosevelt.

do you see the sun, Andrei?
invitation after invitation on Facebook (add me darlings), but I hate clubs. bodies filled with alcohol; minds as empty as the shot glasses in front of them. thinking they understand life (still no one noticed the lost boy in the corner). we're at the Roosevelt and Hollywood never smelled more sour. money being tossed like the gravel found in your shoe.

the clock is coming to its end. Andrei takes my hand, leads me towards the back door.
we exit gracefully, forever trapped in a hiphop world.

nothing

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask me if I'm a writer. I don't even know what a writer is.

father's back from Berlin. sister no. 2, the thin one, telling stories about her magnificent life while I watch quiet, my head bandaged. she'll be attending Yale next year. mother's proud; father's happy everything's going so well in our family.

it's good to be back.

Catalena's refined body on early December mornings. she stands for freedom, elegance, and money. undressing slowly to Bird York; daunting the world with her beauty; coloring my room with her symmetry.

supposed to take over her family's business (an only child due to sudden sterility). romanian aristocracy in its most austere form; they never bothered to get to know her.

jour de tristesse

still at the hospital. they've said I'll be released tonight. woke up this morning with a body full of drugs, my head's bandaged; my lips blue. mother hasn't left my bed since we got here; father's still in Berlin. no calls.
there are bite marks on your thighs, the nurse said slowly, eyeing me carefully. mother looks away, ashamed.

hospital blues.

dress, Givenchy. window, Catalena's

standing in front of the class, supposed to hold a speech about World War II. images of loose body parts flash before my eyes; images of a war my grandfather told me so much about.
I know it all; how he'd piss all over Jewish corpses; how he'd shoot them right between the eyes.

suddenly an Arado bomber plane flies across the troubled skies outside our classroom windows and below it Hitler has gathered his cold army - they salute him. years later they'll swear never to do it again, but have no idea history will always come to repeat itself.
the Arado crashes on the school yard. I realize it's just a car backfiring, but it's too late; I'm already shaking. the epilepsy's back. I'm on the floor, head on the threshold with blood creating a morbid halo. I'm shaking. twenty-nine pair of young eyes watch me carefully. they've paid for a freak show and they'll expect to see the star.

summertime and the livin is easy

Tunic, Hermès

the maids have opened all sixty-seven windows of our house in order to get rid of the dusty smell mother detected the other day. beating the persian carpets and polishing the antique wase in the dining room.
the count's coming to visit, all the way from Bucharest. not even grandfather would get this much attention.

Andrei and I hide in the basement. he snaps my picture as I sing summertime to him.

no time but time

by Traci L. Matlock

lying in bed, below my windows.

memories from a long gone Romania, flickering like candles before my eyes; suddenly I'm five years old and falling down grandfather's three story Victorian house all over again. I'd thought I could fly -I still do sometimes. nineteen stitches after landing on the garden rake; the gardener was fired the next day.

scar tissues as thick as the glass my windows consist of; Catalena's sweet lips taste them as the short hand of the clock reaches its end. it looks fatigued as I glance at it through the moonlight. -will it ever get to rest?

Bird Brigade

my music: http://www.myspace.com/birdbrigade

bad quality. recorded in Andrei's basement. two songs; one about war and another about that one movie that got so famous. I mumble a lot, -sorry about that.

seizures

dear readers,

I'm sorry for being such a terrible blogger. Andrei is currently seated in front of me, listening to a song I wrote about the soldiers in Iraq. I've created a myspace -will share it with you as soon as my body's calmed down. this epilepsy is taking its toll on me.

last nite

in the fog of the banned liquids.

ditching classes

the blue dressed students of my school are... whatdoyousay howdoyousayit - empty.
the school uniform itch. Grigore drives me to Andrei instead and I give him the afternoon off to not tell my mother.

education is not for us, we decide when we realize that after all of this schooling, the world's still unlearned.

like Dean Martin that one time.

no more heroin for me. you can call me a lot of things; attention whore, spoiled brat, sex addict, cry baby, failure etc etc, but I am not a junkie. I refuse to be a junkie.

it's Sunday and time evaporates quickly through the pores of my skin.

I miss you, mother says, after sitting by my shaking body for two hours without saying a word. I want you back.

it's a disturbing sight when she gazes out in the thin air like she does sometimes, her grey eyes getting stuck on something only she can see. maybe the lost rhythms of life, if she could ever see them, but as I dig my face into my pillow, I realize that I miss my mother.

you grew old so fast, she says. outside my windows the birds play. they're careless; free. detached from time.

and so did you, I answer.

the bad daughter

today; lying by my window, listening to Sigur Rós with uneven heartbeats. collapsed outside Hyde last night - too much Martini in an empty body. got carried home by our driver.

mother's mad today. and now they've finally decided, once and for all,

I'll be shipped off to boarding school next semester.

they're finally getting rid of the black sheep of this tragic family.

yet another dinner party

this evening: aristocracy filling the first floor like hair clogging the sewer.

running away. a bottle of Amarone in my hand. escaping reality.

entering our living room again eight hours later, coming home just in time for tea. I face the stiff party with blank eyes. too drunk to stand straight. my ysl dress ripped in awkward places.

I love you, father! I shout as mother drags me upstairs. We have to leave!

we have to get out of this mad house.

fab.

Catalena and Andrei are here now and we're doing it on mother's antique couch.

October - don't be sad, everything's forgiven.

bloody sunday

sorry for the crappy update, people. this week's been excruciating.

as it turns out, both my sisters are mentioned in the baroness' will.
however, I'm not.

mad house

the night's still young. my body longs for Andrei and Catalena, and zron cigarettes and plum wine. I have to leave tonight,

I keep slipping in this mad house.

and the winner is

sister's calling. it's time.
the dark car of the baroness has arrived and this time, she's brought her will.

mother's excited but father knows better.

life.

-it's peeing all over my exit.

lords of beast town.

last night, - marking Hollywood. go to Sunset Blvd to see 4 yourselves.

holding Catalena's latest ysl heels as she colors the ground; she quotes me in one of my saddest songs.

"Don't waiste your best words," it says in bold pink.

flushing snow down the toilet.

our house is storming. maids running around. frenetical. calling.

calling, "Aurora! Aurora!"

calling, "Your mother wants you downstairs immediately!"

calling, "Show yourself, child!"

what now? what this time? they're thinking as I climb out my window and into the day.

illusions.

sweaty sheets, unlocked doors; mother walks in on us as we're sprawled out awkwardly on my bed, naked and satisfied, staring at the ceiling.

mother's pale; looks at me like she did that time she discovered the widowbird tattoo between my legs (I was twelve at the time and shaped like and ironing board).

mother walks out stiffly - no words. maybe she's run out of words by now? she looks disgusted.

the veins on your thighs

I love your body, Catalena.
make love to me, -you make up for a trapped life.

how we end.

currently in Bucharest; stone-faced grandfather has gathered the whole family at his 200 acre estate. the last time he did this was to explain cousin Augustin's mysterious death, but even back then they couldn't convince me it wasn't suicide; cousin Augustin had always found life dull, like every other spoiled aristocrat with too much time on his hands.

remembering the funeral now (mother dressed in Chanel. dark blue - not black).

Augustin in his coffin; the hint of a smile on his pale lips. his face appears soothed - finally at peace.

press pause.

today: a dull Hollywood outside my windows, waiting, mocking. the limo has pulled up the driveway.


I observe the world for a while.

myspace?

last night resulted in three full songs and one unfinished. my ugly voice echoing in my ears.
rhyming "claws" with "jaws" - "mother" with "bother". will get a Myspace account as soon as I've showed them to Andrei, he always cared about my music.

dotted with goose bumps.

today: bathing with Andrei and Catalena.
two bottles of Amarone and 33 cigarette-ends on the bathroom floor later I realize that there's not much more to the world than these two.

he soaps her breasts - they're dotted with goose bumps.
I snap a picture.

and I believed him.

my first year here in Hollywood:

eight years old, trying to run away back to Romania. away. away from stiff families - away from a house full of maids.
but our driver finds my tiny body wandering on Sunset Blvd the next day and brings me back home.
my sisters looked pale; mother got another wrinkle ; only the maids cried.

give it some time, kiddo, said my father. you'll love it here.

Hollywood, -tonight

the Frog wants me to sing with them, ignoring my stage fright.

they'll be @ Overground tonight, second floor.
don't bother coming if you don't know the password.

that hour before morning turns into day.

waking up entangled in each others bodies. floating around in oceans of white sheets and bright morning sunshine. my lips are sore. the world consists of two things:

Catalena's white breasts,
Andrei's hard body,

"Now," she commands, her neck still colored with last night's kisses.

early.

our house, made out of bricks and common ivy.

spending nights on my window sill. I could fall.
three stories - 29 feet.
landing outside sister's window with a shattered skull, an easy scare.

stage fright

daytime is the worst time. I spend my nights writing songs about our house back in Romania, the one with 31 windows and the well which kept me occupied during a childhood without friends.

maybe I should get a myspace-account and put up some songs, I'm not sure.

on how to climb out your window.

fifty year old Macallen on the beach, under cloudless skies - mother sends out our driver Grigore to come and look for me.

drunken sex on the beach; nice and sloppy. trembling fingers searching for the goal, and three unsteady pair of eyes too young to know better. naked bodies under the moonlight; damp sand on my pale thighs. three hours left till Grigore finds my sore body.

she's got the IV

The Ivy this morning, hangover breakfast. Catalena rubs my feet under the table while I finnish my risotto, the only thing worthy of putting in your mouth at this tragic place. some b-list celebrity has caught the attention of the other guests, but we're still too high on last nights escapistic adventures to even notice.

life is a dance, says Andrei for the seventh time since last night, and orders me another glass of Bellini.

bird songs and tinnitus.

Irina & Bianca

two thin sisters in the pool. mother loves them while I'm the disappointment of the family.

synchronized swimming lessons early this morning - I observe from my balcony. an oppressive hangover thudding against my temples.

they're beautiful, and I'm thinking, maybe beauty never really was waisted on the young ones after all, but on the wrong ones instead.

chasing Picadilly.

mother's locked me into my room again. oak tree outside my open window, intruiging, as always on locked in Fridays. mother's beloved old Degas is gone and she wants to know where I've put it.

the air is buttery tonight. I'm lying across my bed with a bottle of Riesling - in love with hundreds of people and in love with life.

we'll return the painting within time, says Catalena,

my greatest lover to date.

first.

pointless dinner party after dinner party this week; mother makes sure I smile politely as the baroness enters our dining room. half a night passes and father's still talking about the economy and about money being passed from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie; from the leopards to the hyenas.

and I figure that,
maybe I should begin documenting this unfortunate existence of mine.