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I was an early contributor to Hitotoki - an online literary project collecting stories of singular experiences tied to locations worldwide. I wrote about going to a poetry reading in Paris.

Read it in full on the narrative map of Paris at Hitotoki or just the text below.

I had invited myself to a poetry reading — don’t ask. I already felt like a cliché but I had just arrived in Paris, was going to be there for a month alone and I didn’t know a soul. The bookshop was just a short walk down the street — otherwise I would’ve bottled out. Along rue de Sevigné, past the Pompiers who never flirted with me but apparently did with everyone else. Across rue St Antoine at dusk; busy with traffic, people buying vegetables, bread and wine on the way home; then nervously sauntering down rue Saint Paul, the archetypal charming Parisian street. The bookshop was packed full of humans, most of whom seemed to know each other. Someone handed me a plastic cup of white wine and I sipped it so I didn’t have to make conversation. The reading began and I settled awkwardly, flushed with wine. I can’t remember any of the poems. There was a man with a beard reading some kind of freestyle beatnik stuff. A blonde woman came next I think. Then a girl about my age started reading. After a while I became aware that I couldn’t breathe properly and my vision had clouded over with tears.

Blinking will release them so I try to tilt my head back a bit. It was at the point when she read, “Because no one can help, because filling out one more form is too much effort, because of the parking tickets, the aspirin prices, the mail taking too long for the bills.” 

It was London; it was something to do with being so tired of everything. It was Paris; it was fear of spending a month alone in a place where I suspected the natives of being unfriendly. I bought the book and chatted to its author. She told me the poem was about seeing someone jump in front of a train. That shook me up, though now when I read it, I see only that. They invited me for a drink around the corner with everyone. I went, drank more wine, laughed and talked like those people you see through restaurant windows.