So come Christmas I started a poem and today I dragged it back out and finished it.
I started it in one of my many moments of being struck by the beauty but the struggle (emotionally, financially, etc) within Paris that people experience as the make their place here.
Paris is that city/that relationship that you hate to part with. With all its beauty and grandeur, there is raw grittiness to it that can be harsh. As like any big city you want to make it in, I suppose, just with thousands of years of love, life and art behind it.
Austin and I are epic-ly lucky and not on the streets. But there are many here that live on the beautiful streets of the most romantic city in the world.
Honestly this is just a poem about love and life. And what we put up with to be where we need to be.
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Paris, Mon Amour
Paris, Mon Amour
My mistress and my wife
My dirty little secret
I cannot afford, so keep me
You’re deep among my pockets
You’re streaked upon their face
They’re weary and uncertain
Except where they want to be
They come to you in droves
Then sleep beneath your clouds
Bundling the cold in
Thick life coats your street
You snarl but entrance
You love us all the same
We want only to sit and watch
As the rushing tides retreat
The tear stained entries welcome
And in century old puddles we reflect
I reach out to clean your cheek
Smearing mascara upon your face
I love your curves and hollows
I twist come every turn
With a swift drop I soar
Then down into a dive I race
If I wanted to leave your arms
I could not find the door
For with the long walk out
We are always turned within
But I am okay with wandering
As long days turn to longer nights
In shadows I still find shapes
The light persistently dim
I hunger for you but when I tire
I need not sleep but wake
Regard the sky completely
And breathe in all the more
You’re sexy but lethal
We want to swallow you whole
You build us, break us, feed us
We are for you…
Paris, Mon Amour
Or in other sung words:
– S