I sometimes get the urge to listen to French music, and yet I still can't understand the lyrics.

 I have always wondered how it feels to have a place to call home: I have lived in so many places, that I still wouldn't be able to tell where's mine.

Each of them was home, for a short while; in each of them I put my hope and my trust, again and again, like a betrayed child who still can't help looking at the world with innocent eyes. But something always led me to leave - a new opportunity, an insurmountable problem, or just life.

I felt a bit like dying when I left France after four months, and when I moved out of the flat I shared as a student as well; and yet I knew I had taken all I could from those places, I knew they had already given me all they could offer to someone like me. After all, in Italian, leaving and dying are two verbs that rhyme; no surprises, right?
On the other hand, the day when flying to London stopped being a pious hope and became a fixed date on my calendar was one of the happiest ever; perhaps, I have been happier when my flight actually landed: hey, I made it, I've been dreaming of this for years and now I'm here!
So long to leaving and dying, then; actually, I prefer much more the English assonance with living.
(I wonder how many times I confused them when I was in school; I remember it took me ages to learn the difference between forgive and forget...but of course this is less subtle, less troubling).

Yes, I'd like London to be my home. Actually, I'd like London to treat me well: to recognize my perseverance, to accord me an accomplice wink from time to time...at least, because I have dreamt of it for years.
Ten years, almost eleven now. Way more than I granted to any of my fleeting, unconfessed teenage crushes - and yet, I can tell you each of them resided in this messy mind for quite a long time, back then.
London has been my true love for almost half of my life; now that we're finally bonded together, I love it even more.
Like all careless lovers, it keeps messing with my mind, continuously asking me for absurd sacrifices that every time I say I won't make...but in the end I just can't help falling victim of its charm, believing its promises, reopening the innocent child's eyes and hoping for the best.
I desperately want London to be my home. I don't want the place I grew up in to make any more maternity claims - see, I AM your home, you just booked a flight to come back on a weekend!
Come on, I answer angrily, you're a shithole, you'll never be more than a hit-and-run retreat...and it relentlessly insists: HA! You just admitted I give you relief, unlike that other friggin' metropolis.

It sounds like an argument between an abandoned, old mommy and her young daughter claiming she must have been a changeling. Who loves who, and who hates who other, is probably destined to remain unclear; what's sure is that I still want to believe in London and me.
I want to see the world, travel, explore, walk upon each and every street until my legs can't take it anymore - and yes, I also want to be looked after in my hate-loved shithole, from time to time. But at the end of all holidays, of all trips, of all vacations, I want to come back to London, and know for sure it still has something in store for me. Something I'll have to struggle to get, perhaps, but I don't really care; not anymore.
Anything goes, as long as this is not another one-way affair.

(On air: Saez - J'Accuse)