English Version | L'Amour Fou

A cliché – puppy-eyed – look, a cliché style, a cliché whisper – en français, n’est-ce pas?! A cliché smooch (is that why they call it a French kiss?), a cliché wardrobe, a cliché moment, a cliché style – the Parisian –, even the passionate vows are cliché: “Paris, je t’aime!”. Only love is not cliché, even if it falls into all these commonplaces: shared love is never stereotyped, no matter how much we want to categorize it. It's always mine and it's always yours and it's always ours, never anyone else's. It's always in the first person, because love comes first. And it is always, as the cliché says, oh là là.

Translated from the original in The Love & Hope Issue, published December 2023. Full stories and credits in the print issue.