pair is.

At the beginning of the semester we were given a checklist.

Fall in love with:

• Paris
• Your journal
• Your blog
• Someone in the class
• Yourself

And although I've almost finished, I think the list is wrong. 

Paris was never a boy to fall in love with. 

Paris was a shelter. A Home to come home to after all was said and done.

A refuge where the outcasts and the liars and the beggars held hands and shared themselves. 

A dark alley filled with torn coats and kept promises.

Paris was the only way to walk through the halls without falling for popularity.

A street light waiting for the perfect lovers first dance.

A trophy case. Empty hope with plans for the future.

Paris was never about robot hearts or dancing videos or baguettes on the street corner. 

What our bones said didn't matter.

Paris is where the grass can't be compared elsewhere. 

Where our hearts stopped fitting in boxes and started beating in measures.

Where the dress robes of graduation didn't change our heads.

We measured the ink stains that Pairs left in our backpacks and the hymns Paris put in our minds.

We even laughed at the street vendors goofy art. 

It is our stroller to take the love of our world on a walk.

Because strollers will grow too small and walking will turn to running, 

but the starting place:

the first home, the first heartbreak, the first proud poem, 

will always dance with us.

Paris was the beginning of the you you didn't know you were going to find.

An open love letter from the past and the future. 

It was signed in handwriting you didn't recognize but a name you'll always wear.

Paris is where the fountain of youth becomes a reality and the antidote to all your problems stops coming in bottles.
A worship ground and a sacred city.
Lights turned out to hold the reverence.
Fuzzy feelings and worn-out notes.
Shattering lines and world-spinning emotions.

Paris was always yours to love, but it was never going to stand still.