Release

Most of times it was a sunny morning after it had snowed the whole night. I was still living in Berlin. It was, I say, after a snowy dawn; but it was many times and I cannot tell for sure. It was after I had tested HIV negative. I would see the trace left by my steps on the virgin white and I would think how little it takes to rape it apart anew -- my holes wide open. Then I would think that at dusk a new snow would cover me up again like a thick, warm blanket; not so thick, not so warm -- so dull and white though.

    It was many times but it was always at the Hallesches Tor station. So close to Nollendorf Paltz, so close that it wounds. That Hallesches station, like many on the U1 line, is elevated above the ground floor. It appears to me like a metallic box stabbed from side to side with a bundle of giant iron needles, the train rails, not going anywhere perhaps, perhaps just creating the station metallic box suspended in the air and that moment for me to be. I would enter the train with clothes, already listening to the tune, and undress as I felt the warmth inside. The train would move slowly, me and my test negative on my hand my virgin skin. The train would enter the dark traversed with further railroads, huge rigid wires all directed to nowhere but necessarily pointed upwards. The train and the rail and the wheels all would collapse in front of me naked amid the people in the metro, amid the noise in my head and the silence outside. It would all rise and I would extend my hands to either side off my trunk -- release me -- I would cry -- RELEASE ME -- and rise as well, the car a mad winged horse I rode -- RELEASE MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Inception

    I guess you never sober up completely really. Like those black holes, you know? These things they're discussing nowadays, that Stephen Hawking thing. It ain't no black hole, they say. They collapse from the inside. Then that other thing, the event horizon, is catching up with itself forever, never fully forming. Well that's sobering up to me. Once you've been all the way down you never come back.
    It helps. I cope better with the damned time that way. It keeps going faster and all those common places -- the world spinning like crazy, years are months, months become like weeks... you know all this shit from the movies, but can't help repeating it all over when you discover it is true. I mean when it happens to you that it is true.
    So that's what it feels like getting sober. You build yourself up little by little but you ain't gonna be a kid again no more. Not after that first time. Shit! Perhaps that's what sat up the time running in the first place. That first night, by the sea, alright, by the harbor with three friends and some vodka I couldn't understand. One of those kids is death. He went to Afghanistan. Another turned out a fascist, a real one. One of those for killing fags and black people. The third guy remains a good pal, as far as I know... The one that died, that night he told me something, and that's what sat all my time in motion -- I didn't realize then. I barely remember anything from that night, but that moment I remember so clearly. He told me something like a curse. Something good, if you know what it is, but it was a curse to me, and one that sat the time in motion never to be stopped. That will haunt me forever in silence, and that's why I must move on and that's why I'm leaving once again. And then he died so there is no way back.

No body knows shit, indeed!

Perhaps the most important part of growing up is understanding that those before you haven't got a fucking clue what the heck is going on.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
and don't criticize what you don't understand.
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
YOUR OLD ROAD IS RAPIDLY AGIN'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
for the times they are a-changing.