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Where are you taking me, Paris? Where is your overflowing river carrying my overflowing heart to? To the ones who have been staying in one place, how do I explain my journey? How do I comfort those who have been unlucky enough to settle down? Or are they the lucky ones? How am I content with all the discontentment of others projected on to my life through conversations and through their so-called love for me?

As your Seine isn’t tidal, Paris, so steady is my love for you, and so navigable for different vessels to travel through. She keeps changing, yet she stays the same – except, perhaps, in continuous heavy rain, where she overflows and covers her surroundings more than people are used to see. My heart is learning from her, like Siddharta learning from the old ferryman’s river. How could I be discontent with this steady stream?

Your river, Paris, she is deep and wide enough for vessels to travel. My heart is deep, and more so in continuous heavy rain, but has it been wide enough for vessels to travel? And is it safe enough for one to stay, especially when it is overflowing? My heart is learning from your Seine, Paris, and it must keep changing yet stay the same – except, perhaps, in continuous heavy rain, which makes it seem destructive, to those unprepared, just by being itself. Like your river, my heart must keep changing yet stay the same whether vessels travel through, or whether they stay.

In the last month I have managed to stay with you longer than I stayed with London and its tidal Thames. In any case, the pier master at Cadogan Pier anticipates my short stay by greeting me with “How long are you staying for – two hours?” whenever he’s lucky enough to bump into my smiley face outside the weekends. He may have started to think that I’m either a spy or super rich, one of which must be true.

Unlike the pier master, I anticipate my long stay. Within me. I’ve lost her before; she was sold and offered at auctions by those I trusted, for gains I didn’t enjoy. Never again, Paris! I got her back and that’s why I feel super rich even if it looks like I’ve been losing, probably a lot more than any responsible person could fathom or handle. She is fully mine and it is up to me to extend her to anyone as I please, for love and for the joy of love.

This very season, myself keeps pouring back into me and that is why my heart is overflowing. My heart’s surroundings, including my entire body and nervous system, not used to this yet, are unprepared. But things will settle, Paris, as my heart finds channels to flow through, a vast ocean to flow into, continuously; not to settle down. And, inevitably, everyone, including my body and my nervous system, will get used to this steady stream.

About a decade ago, my fellow poet Rahung introduced me to our film crew in Paris by saying: Dina is the kind of person who would live even if you threw her into the River Seine. It was said on the verge of me getting so close to grabbing myself back from the hands of everyone but me; to walking out of my imprisonments. And I failed, Paris, and I thought it was because I couldn’t swim. I didn’t understand what my friend meant. I didn’t see that I wasn’t supposed to swim.

I was supposed to flow, Paris. And I have been flowing, though, perhaps, unbeknownst to me. And now that I know, Paris – and now that I accept, I am openly flowing. Ever changing. Ever the same. Like your river.

ni paris ni londres, le 1er mars 2026

je t’embrasse sans cesse !

d.o.