Velvet

A collective tribute to David Lynch. Writings by authors across the globe commemorating the genius that lives on in our dreams.

Table of contents

1. This is the girl - Meriem Ben Mimoun

2. Velvet Bloom - Carina Seiffert

3. can we keep this between us? - Jordan Marcum

4. Last time, Honey - Josefine Bovbjerg

5. One night I was watching Twin Peaks - Gamya Phuyal

6. This place - Laura Odals

7. Velours onirique - Melina Ulpat

8. Ten steps to make your own velvet - Ning Huang

9. At least they were full of collagen - Rozalia Kowalska

Writings

1. This is the girl
    The sand is white and soft like a large feather mattress, almost blue under the pale moonlight. Footsteps in heavy cowboy boots echo like a long-gone prayer in the windy night. 

“This is the girl.” 

    In the vast dark hallway that the cold desert creates and where we meet, your printed picture flies like a hazy memory. Halos of white emanate from the red car like Hollywoodian spotlights under the faded stars. I cannot exactly see his face under the width of his cowboy hat but there’s an uncanny likeness to it, something moonlike and milky. I figure he has no eyebrows to cover the cold and clinical green of his eyes. 

   Tomorrow I’ll wake up in velvet bedsheets. Tomorrow, my head will leave the warmth of the blood-colored pillow and you’ll be nothing but a rotting corpse eaten by maggots patiently waiting for me on the other side of the street, maybe staring with glassy eyes in the corner of the bedroom. Although I cannot bear to imagine the hole in your forehead once the gunshot rings against the californian palm trees, I know that this is necessary.

 “This is the girl.”

    We do not pronounce your name, the idea of you in itself sounds blasphemous. I only murmur and he repeats the sentence with a nod: the deal is sealed in the impersonal anonymity of your photograph. I look at it and think it fails to replicate the color of your lips, creeping like a burning bonfire: Rosso Profondo. I would’ve let you sink your sharp fangs like a vampire straight into my neck, ease the pain of your never dying thirst if you had asked me to. The shades of black and grey declining on the rough paper will now be your only remaining materiality. Prosthetic memory. It is an illusion. 

   Back home. Mulholland Drive. I look at the city, flamboyant with lights before the sunrise. The highway is long and winding. Home. I peek through the keyhole and the room goes neon blue. There’s a theater of people seated in burgundy couches and a single word spoken in broken syllables as I spy like a famished teenage boy on the scene that unfolds: Silencio. My slumber oscillates between moments of agonizing silence and made-up music, scenes from fake movies in slow-motion with words devoid of meaning. 

“This is the girl.”

   Everything feels like velvet that night: the sheets against the sweaty skin that rub and bruise the flesh; my bones falling into an indistinguishable ivory mass; your lips, velvety too against the swell of the wrist one last time. I know I have to leave you behind, fading in the neon blue silence. The fabric is thicker than your skin.

   When the sun rises, nothing of us remains. Grief and death are words; I can control their meaning. There is no orchestra, no singer left to sing. It is all a recording.

Meriem Ben Mimoun

2. Velvet Bloom

Velvet-pleasing perfection spreading by her bruised feet

Drop all the petals until there is nothing left to leave

Smooth rotten glaze, bare layers pelting off

turning naked tissue raw enough for the rind to strip down

until thirsty prunes start lashing out

And doll parts start growing, desperately out of love

Searing skirts, her blonde curl lays its widow veil

He brushes through her darkest days, each sweeping a trail of former motions

each strand will softly be grazed by left-behind lead-laced traces

Collect the fallen threads of a bygone age

Weave them into gentle tapestries of maturing drapes

to bear her passing along its ramshackle way

Carina Seiffert

3. can we keep this between us?

we begin after the posh climax

this is what we have been after

a thick plush between our teeth

a bucket of steam under an arm

there is no day like the evening

all in no single moral exception

there is no dream as deceiving

Intention: with this piece I wanted to capture the feeling of waking from a short sleep out of an intense dream of passion. Lynch’s work was and is dynamic in erotic energy in many of his films. I’m asking “Is gratification enough?” - the “thick plush between our teeth” is a reference to Dennis Hopper’s character in Blue Velvet, who weaponizes his status, expression, and power. I have, through experiences with men like him, been turned off by sex and any activity relating to it. Lynch’s work has been loud in my development as an artist, before and after health issues or danger or being in love and not being in love. His films, music, and art are warm blankets that you can always come home to. There is of course hope in the piece, but the voice is speaking immediately after waking. There is also loss. David Lynch’s death has shifted culture in the states and, to me, is an omen or warning.

Jordan Marcum

4. Last time, Honey

Your voice rings softly, your lips so close that the sound vibrates off my skin.

"Honey" you whisper, stretching out the word, letting it melt on your tongue.

"Honey" I echo, brushing your cheek.

You press the glass jar into my palm, and I feel the weight of it, heavier than I remember. The liquid glints in the foggy glass like amber, pooling slowly as I turn it in the candlelight. The lid twists open with a quiet pop, and the scent drifts between us, clinging to the air. My breath stutters as I inhale.

"God."

I dip my finger in and press it to your lips.

You close your eyes and hum softly, like a bear, ready to hibernate. Your tongue flicks, catching the precious drops, spit and honey blending together.

You trace a finger along the rim of the glass, pressing a soft glob of heaven to my tongue. The sweetness blooms, coating my mouth, filling every corner of me with something I forgot the name of a long time ago.

"You're so soft" you murmur, tracing your nose up the slope of my neck. Your voice is almost tuned out by the drum of blood rushing to my head and the static from outside.

"So soft" you whisper again, as if repeating it will edge the feeling into your memory faster.

Your thumb strokes my cheek, catching a tear on its way down.

"You promised. No tears." you whisper.

"I'm sorry." I tilt my head back, blinking fast, to push the next salty drop back where it came from.

The room is quiet, golden light spilling through the curtains, pooling onto the sheets. My body drapes over yours like a silk ribbon, not an inch between us. You breathe me in, slow, cataloging every scent and sensation.

"Do you remember the smell of flowers?" I ask.

"Mhm.”

“I miss the way they made my nose itch"

“I miss that velvet dress of yours.” Your smile curls, fingertips brushing lazy circles on my back.

"I miss waking up."

A quiet laugh spills from you, and you press a kiss to my forehead, your lips still sticky.

"We did wake up, love. We were awake for all of it. We’re awake now."

You're right. We saw everything. We had everything.

The honey sticks to my tongue, thick and golden. It all feels too indulgent, too abundant. Not at all like I thought it would. The end drags, it lingers. So slowly. It feels like we’re asleep, suspended in amber.

The static crackles louder. Then, a deep, slow whoosh ripples through the quiet.

You press your forehead to mine.

"You’re not scared?"

"No".

Your hand slips into mine, fingers threading together. I swallow, the sweetness burning my throat.

"We’ll be alright".

The world sighs. The light dims. The ground hums beneath us.

And all the fantastical creatures of the earth look up at the sky and weep, as they disappear.

Josefine Bovbjerg

5. One night I was watching Twin Peaks

   Is it velvety lychee or burning liquor? Sweet selroti or bitter karela? I wrinkled my nose, a shiver creeping down my spine. Impossible to tell if the scent was comforting or unnerving. I'd never encountered anything like it before. I began pacing the room, sniffing the curtains, the rug, the couch. Where is this sharp sweetness coming from? It smells like a homemade pie, left in a room with something that’s long since rotted — perhaps even a fly. It smells like cloying rose perfume spilled onto filthy soil. And as I start to untangle the nuances of the odor, I realize that if I don’t find its source, it will soon imbue my clothes. And then… and then it will imbue my skin! I will never wash this scent off! As I run around the room, as I scramble from one piece of furniture to another, I suddenly understand - the smell is coming through the screen.

Gamya Phuyal

6. This Place

The air is thicker in this place.

The haze wraps around me in a

suffocating hug

and leaves no room for breath.

I'm alone now. I shouldn't forget.

Twilight in this town has always been

softer

streetlights trying to make up for the

moonless nights.

Melancholy. I do like that.

I shouldn't forget.

The night is for remembering

the fabric of your dress,

spilled around you like a bottle of wine that

broke on the floor.

I had a dream about this place.

I shouldn't forget.

The air is thicker in this place. I am

haunted by your velvet dress.

All my moments of hunger

buried in the cloth.

No one sleeps anymore in this place.

No one is awakе.

I forget.

Laura Odals

7. Velours onirique

Velvet dances on our screens,

Like a Lynchian embrace, it envelops 

Realism and Onirism, the same stall.

“Blue velvet” like the murmur of a perverse love

The texture of the unspeakable and the strange, 

The flesh of dreams where reality derails.

In the ear of an Elephant Man, 

Whispering a melody, soft and tremorous.

It’s velvet grey, fabric of the fragile soul,

Covering the bruises, becoming/that become almost proper and proud 

For this velvet is nothing more than the reflection of the mirror of illusions

Where Hollywood burns its own passions. 

Melina Ulpat

8. Ten steps to make your own velvet

Velvet, a fabric that often represents nobility and luxury, is one of the most expensive fabrics for daily wear. Today, I’m gonna show you how to make your own velvet in only ten simple steps.

Make sure to share it with your friends!

Warning: This tutorial only applies for poor people. If you have the money to afford buying velvet, you are not welcome here.

Step one: Break into a rich family’s house.(If you don’t know how to do this, I suggest that you watch more films and accumulate more hatred towards billionaires.)

Step two: Tie up the whole family. Feel free to play music or show them sitcoms to help them relax a little and avoid their screams when they are all tied up. Trust me, it helps to have a quiet working environment.

Step three: Force them to eat as much food as possible to stretch their skins. Soft violence is always recommended, but make sure not to harm their skins.

Step four: Cut their throat and hang them upside down, and wait patiently for the blood to drain from their bodies. To pass through this long and boring process, I suggest that you read a book.

Step five: Carefully cut out the stretched skins from their abdomens. If you don’t know how to cut of the skin correctly, watch a YouTube video about slaughtering animals. It’s easy.

Step six: Wash the skin throughly in hot water. We don’t want any smell. Step seven: Let the skin dry naturally. While waiting, cut off all of the hair from the corpses. 

Step eight: Carefully cut the hair to a short length and glue them to the dried skin evenly to create the unique texture of velvet.

Step nine: Sink the skin with hair in a ton of hair dyes. I suggest red or blue. They are the most elegant colors in my opinion.

Step ten: Take out the dyed skin and again, let it dry naturally.

And now, it’s time for you to make some clothes out of this self made velvet and take some beautiful pictures.

PS: If you see ghosts around you in your photos, don’t be scared. They are just the rich people that you killed to make this velvet. We don’t care about them.

Ning Huang

9. At least they were full of collagen

   When we first met, your soul poured from your eyes. Tears overflooded, tears spilled over your cheeks. I dried your face with the tip of my tongue, and tasted truth. Truth is salty, as it turns out, nothing compared to the sweet taste of passion I could find in your veins. So I sucked very hard on your right eye’s orbit. Please, give me your blood.

   As time passed, I learned to value the soul concealed behind the veil of your retina. I was teaching myself to think well of your eyes. I was teaching myself to think of your eyes with tenderness. ‘My eyes, mine,’ I would even say when I caught a glimpse of my figure reflecting within them. Body, please, sway with his soul.

   Finally, I grew to know myself through your gaze. Boys’ eyes were like a thousand pieces of a shattered ruby, and in each, I practiced Lizzie Siddal’s poses. Your eyes are like diluted clay stretching to fill the valleys of my scars. Smoother than velvet, my beauty resurfaces when I become your quantum-stabilized bitch. Drill me with your eyes. Please, drill me out of me.

    If your eyes only tell the truth, then in your eyes is God. I think He hides in the black hole of your left pupil. Let Him love me as if I was the sacred hostia’s most devoted fanatic. I believed I could let your eyes consummate me, if only to fill my heart. Yet here I remain—insatiable. And my pussy requests, ‘please, let me swallow his eyes instead of his cock.’

   Your eyeballs are in me now. They live in my stomach, rubbing against its coral membrane like koi fishes. I take long breaths and gulp down the air to keep them alive. But God has evaporated, and I can feel the rods and cones decomposing. How must I feed them, so they can feed me? What must I do, so they never go blind to me? Please, please look at me!

[One twist and my waist coils into an endless spiral. Entire worlds churn between my ribs. Am I a galaxy or a single neutron star? If I collapse, I will become an eye stretching across your sky.]

Rozalia Kowalska

Acknowledgements

Dear writers,
Thank you for your invaluable contributions to this publication. Your brilliant minds bring creative ideas we could never have foreseen. It is a pleasure to publish your work.

Dear readers,
Thank you for supporting Tinnitus and helping give greater visibility to our young writers. We hope you enjoyed your reading session as much as our editors did. Be confident in your ideas and abilities — our team will carefully consider any submissions that align with the magazine’s mission.

Tinnitus.