wobbling, wonky naiveté

An involuntary grimace quickly smoothed into polite blankness, a gagging masked by a throat-clearing. "Is everything ok?" "Oh, it's nothing, I'm fine" and proceeds to throw up in mouth just a little, not too obvious. Honeyed floral cream turning sour, saffron like dried grass mixed into warm milk that's started to separate. Coconut cream sweet and plasticky with oddly-spiced grave dirt patchouli sediment settling at the bottom. An eerie seriousness that doesn't land and instead evokes a wobbling, wonky naiveté, dewy-eyed and desperate so much as to be repellent. I've found everything I have tried from Marissa Zappas too subtle, too fleeting, stories in which the characters and plots are instantly forgettable, leaving you wondering if anything ever happened at all. Carnival of Souls continues this pointless parade of almost-perfumes.