I used to sit here sipping cocktails I couldn’t afford
just because you sat here years before me, drinking
lust from lips that weren’t yours. I used to sit here
in the heady heat of all you had eaten of each other,
wondering if I stayed long enough would I be able
to taste what it was like to devour all that desire.

I used to come here to scribble down all I might one day
forget and I wondered if she forgot you as quickly
as she turned the page to the next date in her diary.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly.

This month is about kissing goodbye to Paris and its passion. When I returned to Paris four years ago, I lived in the 14th arrondissement, metro station Alesia, where the restaurant Le Zeyer still stands and serves. This was once the haunt of the desires of Anais Nin and Henry Miller, who lived down the road at 18 villa Seurat in 1931.