PARIS :: au revoir

Long time no update. I was (and still am) quite preoccupied with this thing called life.

So this is it then.
The last night of a
Great adventure
In delicate memory like
Flickering candlelight.
The wax is short.
It drips into ice.
The end?

The night is cold.
Clouds blanket skies
And windows are lit.
It is almost Christmas.
Yet the city is empty,
My friends evaporated
Like the last droplets of
Water in a basin.

No longer will I walk
Across the bridge to
A fancy home for
Long-expected dinners
Made on a whim.
No longer will I see
The same familiar face
Dogging my footsteps,
That charismatic smlie
Beneath messy curls,
The face that marked
My seat in class –
Beside his.

No longer will I see
The Eiffel tower sparkle,
Take a bus across the Seine,
Ride a bike along its banks,
Stroll into museums as though
I own them.
No longer will I stroll down
The Champs-Elysees as though
It were my local street,
Buy breakfast in boulangeries,
Be tempted by creperies.

No longer will I climb
Six flights of winding wooden stairs
Be greeted by an orange laptop
And old familiarity.
As for that large unremarkable
Building I once called my school,
With its floors and rooms and lecture halls,
I can no longer say it is mine.
I am just another passing stranger
Who looks upon it with
Fond, forgotten memories.
Today I have passed that place
For the last time.

Goodbye and farewell,
City of lights.
Though you will always be here,
And I may visit again
A thousand times,
You will never be the same
As you were to me
In these last few months,
In this precious moment.

Au revoir, Paris.

Written 22/12/16 in my apartment in Paris, on the last night before my flight out of the city.