*Warning: Naughty language ahead. 

You know what? Fuck the fucking landmarks.

Fuck queuing for an Eiffel tower selfie; hand me a raspberry tart in a Place Monge brasserie where elderly Parisian women queue in the rain on a cold May morning.

Fuck the Moulin Rouge, I’d rather a Vin au Rouge; let me sip it in a smoke-filled dark corner of a side alley burlesque bar where dollar bills and bras hang like trophies from the ceiling.

Fuck the line for the Louvre; whisper me messages of angst and anger and love and lust smeared over filthy concrete ghettos, real-world modern art vomited over derelict buildings with a rusty spray can in the dead of night.

Fuck the Pantheon; let me wander through the Latin Quarter for its exquisite wrought iron balconies heaving spring flowers above truanting teenagers chain-smoking on the sunny pavement.

Fuck the Champs-Elysees and its consumerism; let me sample and amble through rain-soaked mid-morning markets in Montmarte instead.

But most of all, fuck the Paris bucket lists; I’d rather trip destination-less through its cobble-stoned streets, all wide-eyed curiosity and vulnerable in my illiteracy.

To smell is the sweetness wafting from corner crepe stands in winter.

Let escargot swimming in butter and garlic melt on my tongue.

And glimpse couples kissing in the rain as the sounds of saxophone floats, melanchony, through dark alleyways.

Because if you put down your lenses and your selfie sticks…Paris is more than a to-do list.

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Author: Stephanie Capper

Editor: Katarina Tavčar

Photo: Vincent Anderlucci/Flickr