Berlin

berlin spreads its dark wings and huddles me in. i cough and breath and fear to lose conscience. my tears don't dry in the rain and johnny cash is playing. blue night engulfs my heart. i wish i wish i wish i was here. my soul is lingering somewhere still high up in the clouds. singing the song of a dying swan headed north.
oso plays and urges me to think of the things i got. better to lose your photos than your life in a flood. i think of the pacific ocean of course and the alleyways and the strange days that had found me. of good byes and other impossibilities. that it must have been a relief that i left. and i wonder what words mean at all. and if he has ever loved. oh have i loved. boy. the rain is streaming down and it's hard to keep track of the caleidoscope of memories that flood in. how i really loved the northern midwest and the westcoast. new york, and still, in the distance, new orleans. austin, texas, and portland, oregon. a miriad of possibilities. letters to be written.
people only vaguely smiling back at me in these grey streets here. my New York friend anguished because her man is determined to move to Berlin. i know now, i know now. i know.
berlin, you got me back. it's hard to find ground under my feet. people so familiar and yet foreign. so cultured and grounded. so ignorant in their own right. nobody even asks how it is over there.