Berlin

A poem I wrote during my three-week stay in Berlin.

The carriage filled with the grey fuzz

of her sobs - pressed between two front teeth,

still too big for such a small face. My own are

growing crooked again, and my eyelids heavy.

What a labour of love to fill a page with words.

 

A hardcover notebook lies in the dresser. Gilded

butterflies guard its empty pages - a birthday

gift. I am twenty-two now, and there is still something

holy about slipping beneath the covers in the middle

of the day. I dreamt of a boy with emerald eyes - 

so beautiful, when they are wet

with tears.

 

My words dried up as I drew the curtains, locked the

doors and left the letters to my friends waiting

in pretty envelopes devoid of a stamp. So many

lives are being lived in the deep, echoing dystopia

that is Berlin.

**Walk naked from the bathroom, without

a care. You don’t know what doors

the strangers live behind, what windows

belong to them. A child is playing the xylophone - 

a joyful lamentation. Absent

of any discernable language,

we could be anywhere.**

Author's Note

The last stanza (marked with **) is one that I am unsure of... It has followed me through various drafts but I cannot decide whether it fits in this poem or needs to find another home. I feel that this poems ends very smoothly after stanza 3.
Let me know if you have any thoughts.