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was a fabulous year
when i heard that
i was picked for a french exchange in
quebec
and i would get to speak the
language of love,
words falling effortlessly
off of the tip of my tongue to
crash
into the ears of passersby
and yet when i arrived in the capital city,
i felt like such a stranger
for who was i to barge into their lives
like i was
royalty –

i made appointments with
the guidance counsellors, those teachers that thrived
in an office from the black lagoon,
those creatures with their sharp, bleached-white
teeth
that shone under the fluorescent lights
and the way they looked at you
with those dark, dark, dark eyes
as if you were prey
and i swung my legs nervously, so nervously
as i sat in a chair, feet keeping clear of the
water moccasins
as i tried to pick my classes for after i returned,
from the city and faraway province, that
would affect me for the rest of
my life –

saying goodbye
was the easiest part when i left home
because i'm used to saying it,
to my past and to people i have once loved and for every time
i moved away to a new town,
so leaving my family behind wasn't terribly frightening
and i was excited to live in the city
for as far as i've remembered, i've always been
a city girl,
content with the fast pace of life
and the rush that you get from hearing the sounds of
taxis
and buses and cars honking and paper boys
shouting out the daily news to
anyone who cares to
listen –

the west met the east in the place that
i called home during the
harsh winter
where foreign words collided to make up
the french and english and chinese household
and oh the food, the food that
her chef father cooked for us must have been
sent from the heavens
for it was simply divine
and the noise, the noise of the city
sung out to me
sung out
sung –

making friends is my forte,
the one thing that i'm actually good at because
i find that i'm an all around likeable
girl,
a girl with long brown hair and the ripped pair of converse
who is approachable and can slide into any social clique
and besides, everyone knows that the new kid
is mysterious and exciting and above all else
new
so the french teens were drawn to me like
moths on texaco lights and they flitted around me,
pulling me into their world without
a second thought –

sleeping for weekends dog-piled on couches after
long nights spent on the town
at parties and clubs and late night diners
where poutine was at the top of every menu,
my head hurt from the bright lights
that flashed in the dark night sky
but it seemed like that was the norm for those city kids
and when the sun rose above those golden clouds
i knew that my time there was up and
i would miss living the popular life
in the city
but my fifteen minutes of fame
for being the new and exotic english girl
had just ended and i found myself
wanting to be back
with my rusty pick-up truck, to be back
home.