/kəˈlɛktɚ/

I collect faces. I collect wrinkles.

I collect pride. I collect memories.

I collect beauty

from another time & space

I collect strength.

  

 

- From Latin colligere ("to gather together", past participle collectus)

Aesthetics of a Crisis

She cries waves
drinks haze
longs for the stillness
of her shaking legs

The beats on her eyelids
echo the drama
of her 'pardon - pardonne-moi'
'tu n'es pas censée voir ça'

There's a cut on her foot
for the storm has not past
and the quivers tear up 
her skin
on the asphalt

'Take her away please,
can't you see that there's blood?
she shouldn't have to deal with this
i'm the one looking after her'

The machines are beeping now
heart monitor in free fall
'stay with us' they say
but she's already gone

For there is no more breathe
to keep her awake

and all she can hear

are the sirens

sirens

Track #6

'you're already hurt 
i'm scared that if you put 
your trust in me i'll make it worse 
i'll hurt you'

Forget Judy

I didn't forget you Judy.

I just lost you somehow.

Leilah

She writes poems
about my thighs
And the way
she touches them

She's intense
A feminist
Dark hair
Middle East

'I just need an hour' she says
Then calls me a feline

So when she asks me what I want
I tell her
to go down

Her freckles

- © Laura Zalenga

Tu n'es pas belle quand tu pleures

Ce soir Françoise perd goût à la vie.

Empty Steps

Bristol I love you.

But you're bringin' me down.

Greenwich

Dear Prime Meridian,

Yesterday you said tomorrow.
But my nights are your mornings and I can't keep on living in your shadow.

See you on the East Side,

180°0'E

50's Decadence

But at the end of the show these sparkling divas became Mothers again,
rushing their way back to the babies they left behind.

And you could see them bending under the weight of their necklaces
for each of their pearls
was still holding the magic 
of every single spell they cast
night after night

- The Latin Quarter (NYC), 1958

שאהידה

 “The evening goes blind,and you are 

Only twenty"
             

You are only twenty

and your first pregnancy is a bomb.

- אגי משעול

Les oeillets

And then he proposed me.

Out of the blue.

I guess I said yes 'cause I had nothing else to do. 

Psychology of Shame

Arrête tes conneries, Maddie. 
C'est pas parce que tu prétends que tu t'en fous que t'es pas déchirée de l'intérieur.

Combien de fois as-tu donné ton corps?
Combien de fois as-tu fermé les yeux pour ne pas voir qui le touchait?

J'ai les nageoires qui me démangent.
C'est comme quand j'avais 17 ans. 

Et je rêve encore de pouvoir casser les fenêtres pour qu'on m'harnache la camisole.

千禧曼波

She couldn't escape.

She always came back.

Millenium Mambo, 2001

Directed by Hou Hsiao Hsien
Starring Qi Shu

The breeze

48 thousands seas & your bottle in the middle.

Those words.
Her feet.
The cliff.
That sound. 

I'll keep on drinking iron waves 
- until you reach the bottom line
Whiskey Gin Vodka Darling Babes 
- when you'll be down, gimme a sign.

Series #1

Bottoms up ladies. 

It's bed time..

'Cause

this

is

where

you

lay

your

bones.

NB: I do not own the rights to the previous pictures. 

Plusieurs

Si tu pouvais écrire, tu dirais quoi?
Que toi aussi tu étais 3?!

Et puis Jolene au bout des bras, au bout des cils, au bout des doigts.  
J'en oubliais les autres sans même faire couler la vodka. 
  

Wanted

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days.
Profession: none, or "starlet".

Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling).

Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
What make is the magic carpet?
Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
And where are you parked, my car pet?

[...]

Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!
Are you still dancin', darlin'?
(Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts,
And I, in my corner, snarlin').

Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.

My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?

[...]

Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie?

Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying. 

Officer, officer, there they go--
In the rain, where that lighted store is!
And her socks are white, and I love her so,
And her name is Haze, Dolores.

Officer, officer, there they are--
Dolores Haze and her lover!
Whip out your gun and follow that car.
Now tumble out and take cover.

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.

空気人形

- Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda

Starring Du-na Bae & Arata

Le laquais et la putain

"Ils jouaient à la jeunesse, à Maupassant, à l'interdit. Mais sa redingote à lui et son pince-nez à elle étaient la risée de toute la ville."

- Nina Berberova

1986