Four Days
My shirt still smells the faint and yet specific smell
Of your morning coffee, black, strong, bitter coffee.
To be honest, the bitterness might come from me.
Anyway, there are plenty of coffee shops here.
It has been one day and I have done the right thing.
There is that old song playing on the radio,
Do you ever get that jazzy mood indigo?
I personally like things to be black or white,
I could not keep drowning in the grey of your eyes.
It has been two days and I have done the right thing.
I am stuck in that sticky traffic jam again,
And all I can think about is our desert street.
I miss the peacefulness but the hush was deadly.
Silence was deafening in the land of nothing.
It has been three days and I have done the right thing.
A yellow letter was delivered late today,
Only your envelopes are of that lame pale shade.
I smiled a little but then I read, then I knew,
That it was a mistake, not to me, not from you.
It has been four days, well, have I done the right thing?
Lola Velly
Lycée International Montebello, Lille
First Prize senior
Read by Olivier Holmey