Paris

I have only been to Paris once, but the first time I went in 2016, it felt as if I had lived many lives in and around her city.

Recent news of flames engulfing the majestic Notre Dame reminded me of its importance, my privilege of having seen it up close, and the impermanence of most everything, including this historic treasure that has chipped a piece of my heart and kept it, since the day we met.

Here’s a poem I wrote from a couple of months ago, a piece I had written as the Parisian I never was, but always could become, when I escape into my words and onto the many lives I wish I had lived.

Paris

I

There is a vast emptiness waiting to be filled

There is struggle for joy in a time of grieving.

There are spaces in between the lives we will have lived

There are longings to be kept in longing without fruition

II

We once took the city and stomped its grounds,

We once left our doubts where love was found

In trembling cusps of hands that hold, 

Relentless lusts of life in bold. 

Vivid and stark, with works of art, 

and hearts that cling though torn apart.

We rushed around the Arc at two

And watched the sky turn orange from blue

Atop the tower where lights would dance

As time would pass in coloured trance

We swept the Louvre and saw her smile

We sat outside and drank our wine

You kissed me slowly by the Seine

We fell in love in Notre Dame

The cobbled streets where we would dance

Beneath the lamps, in rushed romance

The breathless laughs, your tireless gaze

My paramour consumed my days 

III

Til one summer morning

We sped out of course

You took all our longings

And elsewhere you poured

You doused her in sunlight

And took her apart

You hollowed your reasons

To replace my heart

Consumed in delight 

Of thick summer’s air

You paid me no mind

As I walked up the stairs

To find you in bed 

Riding her skin

Your hands in her hair

My soul on a string

Drowned in our covers

You sank in between

New worlds to discover

The rest was a dream

IV

Here lies the great divorce 

of our love and my loss:

The ricochet of time,

 the dissolve of all that was

The friends who had to choose, 

The drag of each lit cigarette

The whiskey and the blues, 

The aftermath of what was left

I draw the curtains in, 

And watch this city die 

The lights that lined my memory

I dimmed with each good bye

Good bye to the tower, 

The river, and the Louvre

Good bye to my dear city, 

The truths I thought I knew

I’d say good bye, my lover

But these nights have proven true

After all that I’ve uncovered

I still long the nearness of you