a pretty ditty.

If I want to walk in the rain with no socks I will do just that,
Just because the French don’t.
If I don’t care about the hole in my brogue and the black smears around my eyes,
Why do the French?
I am never going to be chic,
Like the French.

So I walk straight through the puddles with absolutely no grace,
Rub my eyes dry and push my hair off my face.
I speak their words the best my northern tones can,
I weigh my fruit like they ask and give change to that young homeless man.

I look and stare and watch people pass me by,
Imagine them a story in my head about where they’re going and why.
Who they’ll marry and when they’ll die,
If they’re honest or if they lie.
What they sound like and where they’d rather be,
Whether they look anything like me.

A thin girl stood all hunched up and cold,
Looks like a girl too soon grown old.
Her eyes are dull, like she’s not even there,
The sleeve of her jacket is split with a nasty little tear.
I think she’ll be called Hannah or something equally as plain,
She’s blowing cloudy puffs of smoke at me, like she’s steadily going insane.

What would she do if my thoughts were actually said,
If she knew what I was thinking up there in my head.
It’s then that I catch her cigarette stare,
I didn’t even realise she knew I was there.

I feel her eyes decoding my gladrags,
My thousand antique rings, the soggy spines of my mags.
She clocks the hole in my worn away shoe,
I look at hers and she has one too.
I smile inside and realise she’s just playing my game,
Us French and English girls are really just the same.