Amber
Bergamot
Clove
Musk
Spanish vanilla
Toffee11/04/2025
Mlleghoul
468 Reviews
Mlleghoul
2
two faces of one shadow
There's a particular kind of gothic imagery that Black Death calls to mind: baroque church architecture in shadow, where stone angels tucked into dusty alcoves have awakened hungry, wings once outspread in reverence now twisted inward in sacrilege, enfolding flesh in the dark. A century's worth of prayer-stained marble suddenly weeping blood; an inverse of holiness; the stony flame of the frozen heart. Black Death is cold where it should be warm. Clove should read as warming spice but here it's numbing, that sharp eugenol prickling before the needle's sting, tingles cold and strange. The smoky haze of offerings burnt to forbidden names. Sweetness emerging from the dry smoke and numbing spice, out of place, a lure you know better than to follow but follow anyway. Temptation heavy and inescapable, smooth and terrible in its certainty, the sweetness of something you were always going to do. Desolation and eerie stillness, the chill of being found by what you've forever been circling. This is what it smells like to stop praying for the shadows to spare you and call them closer instead. Fear and desire meeting in the same alcove, two faces of one shadow. The darkness was coming regardless - might as well open the door to it yourself.
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