Au Coin (On the Corner)

Chère Spéciale K,

Çà va ? So I am typing from the beautiful city of beige, Paris. My heart has not moved one step away from that man, mon amour. I think the suffragettes did not fight for me to behave like some 1950’s house wife. When Driss arrives back from work to my apartment it is cocktail hour! He cooks better that me. He made a seafood spaghetti with a white wine that I could cradle like a baby with scents of passion fruit, then for dessert a raspberry tartelette with pistachio and la créma,magnifique! It is not such a pretty picture as the jolie couple on your postcard. It is like Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal ici. He left after dinner and did not return as promised to keep all the hours in my bed.

He said he would be back at the apartment at 9pm sharp so I waited au coin so all of the 18^th arrondissement could see me waiting instead of going stir crazy in the apartment. I stood there outside in the street. It began to rain, it grew cold and I waited for hours outside on a cold night in Paris for the promises of man not kept. I grew weary the shop keeper Mohammad at the epicerie arabe au coin asked me who I was waiting for I answered, "ma mec." I knew he would only be coming by train so I waited in full view of the stairs to the Metro Lamarck-Caulaincourt on the corner, pacing, wandering in circles going nowhere and he did not come.

This man reminds me of my father. When I was sixteen, my mother had come back from working abroad in Saudi. She had been home three months and my father at the dinner table said one evening when he caught the train home that evening that he did not want to return, to our home ever again. A year later my parents were divorced during my Higher School Certificate exams. In France if a man says he is going out to buy a packet of cigarettes (cherche une cigarette) there is a chance he may not return.

My fella aint no good, it makes me want to throw every glass crashing against the wall, break ever mirror. I started smoking again. Oh fuck! Fuck this! He is no good to me. I am like Billy Holiday that loves this man. Oh god damb it! I am drunk again and the Rosé has turned warm.

Cold empty bed. Nobody will unmake the sheets tonight. I will not undress tonight.

Losing my mind he is the type who could save me. Knowing its safer dreaming in my empty bed. Swinging between this misery and joy. I am feeling quite insane because I am mad about that boy.

When I was a little girl the devil called my name. I saw his face in a corner behind my bedroom door. He called my name he had the face of my father who do you think your fooling he said sparingly my mother loved me she rocked me like a rock. I want this man to love me like a rock.

Oh dear fayroze.

Carte Postale Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal up in here!

To :                  Mademoiselle Roxanne Gröebelle