The Temple in India That Wasn’t Real

The dream was set somewhere in India—middle of nowhere, details unspecified—where I ran into Juju by chance and we walked through a forest together to a ruined temple. We made a fire, looked at the stars, and then kissed. With tongue. I woke up with a full day of heartbreak over someone I’ve never met and a place that didn’t exist. It unsettled me, slightly.

So it makes perfect sense that when SXTN—Juju and Nura, the German rap duo who’ve been methodically dismantling everyone in their path—dropped the video for Bongzimmer, I watched it consumed by a specific, unreasonable jealousy. The clip delivers exactly what the title promises: a room, a bong, strippers, and the two of them completely unbothered. Every person in that room who got to sit there and get high with Juju is living a better life than me, and I resent each one of them personally.

I could put on my critic’s hat and complain that Bongzimmer sounds like something a nostalgia-act girl group would release to prove they still exist. Which is both untrue and exactly the kind of desperate take you manufacture when you want someone to notice you. The more I fan out in public, the worse I look. I know this.

So I’ll go to bed. Maybe India again. Maybe the fire. Maybe those lips.