TIMOTHY BLORE

14m²

In Paris

During a heatwave

At the searing tip of Boulevard St Germain

Less than a stone’s throw 

From Sciences Po 

And about thirty yards

From Rue du Bac métro 

In the old servants’ quarters

A courtyard and many stares 

Up to a fourth-storey flat

Fourteen square metres

Where I could shower and cook

Simultaneously, cooped up 

With the pigeons

My crow’s nest, my cupboard 

My dark little nook in La Ville Lumière

And a view at a push

Of a fizzing tower

Sprinkled with glitter

Offending the night

If I’d stand on my desk

And poke up my cigarette

And crane my neck 

Through the skylight

After twenty-one years

These became the conditions

I hadn’t yet known that I’d needed 

To bear grateful witness

To my own loneliness

And after a slew

Of mumbled confessions

To my then ‘Now Self’

Who had recently slipped 

From the coattails

Of an over-achieving 

Childhood

I came to a couple of conclusions

One:

Happiness is 

A solitary business

Two:

Only you 

Can decide 

The size 

Of your world

Timothy is a poet, actor and playwright based in Essex in the UK. He has had poems published in the latest issue of ‘GatherZine’ and ‘A New Ulster’ and his first play ‘AlterNativity’ ran at two London theatres.