i will say her name now. i will call her. käthe schmidt kollwitz pulled me here. to berlin. to this kiez. she pulled me so precisely that she pulled me all the way to this room. to this music. back into this body. to tell this story.
i forgot to tell you how a lithograph, a shadow of a drawing pulled from a stone, a drawing of the drawer by the drawer, a print of a gaze into a mirror, i forgot to tell you how this image of a mother-lover-creator found it’s way back to berlin, back to its kiez, all the way back to this viewpoint.
i forgot to tell you how upsidogi climbed the scaffolding to the top of the tower on friedrichstrasse before it was a tower when it was only the bones of a building and caverns muffled in still sweet smelling cement cool in her nose as she scampered joyously up up up to sit above berlin for the first time. i forgot to tell you how she saw her lover for the first time, stretched out, this city.
i forgot to tell you how she got here. i forgot to tell you of all the hands that held her that knew how to hold her each in their own way all the time both rocking and propelling her. i forgot to tell you of so many moments of mundane-peace-joy. i forgot because i am home to a hungry ghost. my restless addiction that tames my stallion truth with its need for destruction before tongue can even lift to form the first word. a hungry ghost which protects this body from feeling and understanding, protects this body with its perfect path to isolation.
i forgot to tell you a lot. because i forgot. my hungry ghost devours the present along with the knowledge of the present.
yet as i remember i remember it was indeed this body that has felt more kindness-softness-sharing than pain. and i remind myself it is okay. i simply had to remember the story this way.