Night Is Our Witness
I was the first one on the street that morning, trying to say goodbye to a city that had taken hold of me for three years. My skin was torn open by it, my soul was loved there, my grief was cared for. I kept coming back to that moment three years ago when everything shifted, and where we’ve ended up now. I’m passionate about the past, greedy for the future, and I barely visit the present at all.
Walking along Kastanienallee with the gray air filling my chest, I see the faces again. The red-haired girl with the overweight cats. The curly-haired one with so much joy and so much tragedy packed into her chest. The one who could twist feelings into anything. I wanted all of them. I had them. Then I lost them when the time came.
The night is our witness. She was struggling with herself the whole time, always pulling back, and she was promised to someone else. No kisses, she kept saying, no kisses—you could see it written all over her face. I pushed anyway. Bit her neck, pressed her into the corner. That night stays with me. I fled from the sadness but I stayed because I had to, following some pull I couldn’t refuse. That’s how I move through the world—like a ghost crossing through other people’s walls, even the walls of the dead.
Would I ever see you again? Sometimes I want to scream at you. How could you let yourself die before me? The thought gives me a headache. I’ve screamed. I’ve cried. I’ve accepted it. I’ve thrown up. I’ve been through everything and this emptiness you left won’t fill back in. But I know you’re my guardian angel now, wherever you are. That gives me hope again and makes me smile. You stupid cow, why did you have to die?
The morning sun shines through the treetops and hits my face. We used to love each other in mornings like that. It’s the loneliest moment of the day. The wet in my eyes becomes something like happiness and warmth spreads through me.
Berlin is my home. But I know this isn’t where I stop. I’ll move through more people, learn them, love them, and then we’ll all scatter. Because we’re all just restless wanderers looking for happiness or truth or understanding, losing ourselves somewhere between loving something and the ability to breathe.