A Letter To Berlin, The One I Remorsefully Had To Break Up With

Hallo Berlin,

Do you remember me? I happen to think about you almost everyday. I left you without a say, but I miss you more than I pretend in front of my hometown friends. I still hide crumpled pieces of you in my wallet, I have mirages of your shapes, ghosts of your scents in my lonely instants. I know, our relationship wasn’t a smooth trip all the way, I know I nearly only spent three years by your side. But the only thing you ever meant to me was love. That’s why it keeps hurting so much.

Do you remember now? The one I loved introduced you to me, he was one of your sons, born from your soil. He took my hand and we went astray.

You watched us loving each other and tearing each other’s hearts. Happily driving along your lights with our doubts in the boot.
We kissed under your yellow moon refusing to see we were already doomed.
And when your heavy snow would trap us as we were walking back home at night, we would cheer each other up and keep going through the lonely cotton streets. The coldness never felt so peaceful to me.

You knew from the beginning Berlin, but you’re not brutal, you say goodbye with gifts and goodwill. And before it all ended up in a bath of guilt, you painted thousands of brilliant colors on my faded spirit.
I came to you for the sake of love, for the sake of something that would soon be gone. And I fell for you at the same time.
Many of your places are haunted by some of the brightest feelings I ever experienced. And some of the most painful too. It’s as if you had the power to saturate each of our emotional tones.

The sun went down.
On a July evening, I was just a little insignificant dot somewhere in town, but my heart was heavier than all of the city buildings put together. Crying all of the tears I had in store on the kitchen ground. It wasn’t the first time I was hurting in this room, but it was the worst of them. Each time it happened I had a strange reflex. Going to the window, pushing the blinds and watching the cars ballet down the road as I sobbed.
At least, you were still standing there while my own world was falling apart.

I had to leave Berlin, because his face was painted on each of your facades, his voice kept echoing in the hubbub of your daily life.
You had become too big for my little strides.
And the last times I went for a stroll, I could only see the phantoms of two late soul mates, holding hands through the mist of fate.
I still carry the mood of this bitter morning. 6 o’clock, the sun had raised behind a cloudy veil.
I took my broken heart in my suitcase and left the photographs on purpose.
I didn’t look up during my final walk with you, I didn’t watch the distance grow between us through the window.
I swear I didn’t want to go.

And soon I was back to my first home.
I’m still caught in one of these blues you get after a holiday, when you’re back home and the world looks grey. This feeling usually hangs in your mind for a little while and quickly goes away, but I guess mine is going to stay.

I miss you dearly Berlin, I’ve got pieces of you running underneath my skin. And every time I get tears in my eyes I close them and I see myself sitting in a car. I’m young and hopeful, I feel light and powerful, we’re moving forward on your big roads as I watch the landscape pass, thinking this moment will last forever. And I feel ok.
And I feel ok.

Berlin, in your arms I got my heart broken, but as you squeezed my soul you also broke my chains.
Berlin, would you, one of these days, hold my hand again?