You Do Not Need the Map Anymore (Mentor-Mentee)

Lyrics

[Verse 1 — Sisukiro, accordion leads]
I taught you the pharmacie first
because the pharmacie
is where the city decides
if you belong
You walk in
you describe the symptom
in the wrong tense
and the woman behind the counter
either helps you
or makes you feel
that your fever
is a grammatical problem

I taught you to say
j'ai mal a la gorge
with enough conviction
that the pharmacist
would stop correcting your vowels
and start finding the medicine
and you practiced it
in my kitchen
on a Tuesday
until the sentence
stopped shaking

[Verse 2 — Orikusis, clarinet begins to lead]
You taught me the lease
line by line
because a French lease
is a novel
that charges you rent
for reading it

You taught me
which clauses to fight
and which to sign
and the difference
between a landlord
who is difficult
and a landlord
who is illegal
and the difference
saved me nine hundred euros
in my first year

But the thing you really taught me
was how to stand
in an office
where nobody expected me
to understand
and understand anyway
and say nothing
until the nothing
had accumulated
enough weight
to rearrange the room

[Pre-Chorus — Both]
This is the love
that builds a ladder
and then holds it steady
and then watches you climb
and then watches you
stop needing the ladder
and feels
not abandoned
but completed

[Chorus — Both, instruments trading equally]
You do not need the map anymore
You navigate by smell now
by the bakery on the corner
by the sound the metro makes
at Republique
where the tunnel bends
and the train complains

I gave you the map
You gave it back
folded differently
with notes in the margins
I did not write
in a handwriting
that is yours now
not mine
and the margins
are better
for your annotations

You do not need the map anymore
and the not-needing
is the only graduation
I wanted to give

[Verse 3 — Orikusis, clarinet leading fully]
Last week
you asked me for directions
to the Vietnamese grocery
on Rue de Belleville
and I laughed
because you taught me
where Belleville was
and now I am teaching you
where the lemongrass hides
in the back
behind the tamarind
on the shelf
that is labeled in Vietnamese
that you cannot read
and I can

Em da lon roi chi oi
I have grown now older sister
Not taller
Wider
My French has a foundation now
and the foundation
has rooms you did not build
and the rooms
are furnished
with things I found
without the map

[Bridge — Both, tender]
The hardest part of teaching
is the scaffolding
You build a frame
around the person
so they can reach
what they cannot yet reach alone
and then
when the reaching
becomes their own

you take the frame down
quietly
without ceremony
and the building
stands on its own
and the building
does not remember
the scaffolding
and that is correct
that is the whole point
the scaffolding
was never meant
to be remembered
it was meant
to be removed

[Final Chorus — Both, muted trumpet enters, clarinet now leading accordion following]
You do not need the map anymore
and I do not need
to be the one
who knows the way

You taught me the pharmacie
I taught you the lemongrass
You taught me the lease
I taught you the argument
that won the lease
You gave me the city
I gave you the city
back
with better restaurants

And somewhere in the middle
the teaching stopped
and the walking together started
and we have been walking together
since
not leading
not following
just walking
at the same speed
in a city
we both know now
by different names

The accordion and the clarinet
do not need to decide
who leads
They just play
and the waltz
takes care of the rest