fragments of the past.

"here and there in the brain
keepsake boxes that preserve
fragments of the past"

the cure: boys don't cry. 1991/1992. my best friend jane and i are sitting next to her record player on the floor of her smelling like oranges room, drinking yogi tea, wearing embroidered indian shirts and listening to her aunt's old records.

soul asylum: runaway train. 1993. a night at the then still bearable "turbinenhalle" with my brother and his ultra-hot luke perry lookalike friend oliver. while dancing, i flirt with a guy. for hours. casually touching, moving closer and closer and closer. with "can you help me remember how to smile" we finally crash into each other, in the middle of the dancefloor. without having spoken a single word
we smoke up in his car later. i am 15. and careless. and stupid.

metallica: nothing else matter. 1993. making out with alexander on a table in the middle of a p-dorf party. same procedure as last weekend? same procedure as every weekend.

fury in the slaugherhouse: time to wonder (live). 1994.05. a party at a youth club in hometown. jane, in full swing since her recent nose job, is making out with some guy on a random patch of grass. i'm jealous. kinda.

r.h.p.: keine ist. 1994.07. the last night in b. i'm on my first ever vodka buzz, courtesy of you. you put this song on in a room in which we never had music before. i want to stop hiding what we have, and you push me away and i freak out and go into drama queen mode and scream at you and run out of the room and you follow me and i put my head under a shower and you give me your t-shirt as a towel subsitute and carry me up all those fligths of stairs to bed. so you care after all, don't you? barbara sends you away when we get to my room.
i wonder what might have been if she hadn't.

the b52s: we're the flintstone's. 1994.08. driving along the a42 with tim, andrea and andreas. i'm bummed because totte didn't come along, but excited about the weekend in b. nonetheless. stefan is dead. we just don't know about it yet.

nationalgalerie: die waffe. 1994.08. ich weiss das tor ist verschlossen/aber lass eine tür für mich offen/ein schild auf dem steht/„achtung vorsicht gut behandeln inhalt zerbrechlich“. it's a fin-de-siécle night. we're alive, and he isn't, and he will never be again. and we will all die, anyway. shitty oettinger beer and no one's dancing, but you and me and volker. i love you as fiercely as someone can love someone else at 16. i want more of you than what you are willing to give. or able to. or whatever.

lisa loeb: stay (i missed you). 1994.10. waking up to this song on the radio in andrea's first flat in münster the morning after my first ever wine booze-up, the morning after meeting frank. having a terrible hangover. but still remembering what it was like to open the door, to see him and know him and want him, instantly.

soundgarden: black hole sun. 1994.10. a party at the münster art school. "i'd just like to kiss you once more. i want a memory of kissing you." i want to take you home, so badly so i pretend that i don't care and flirt and lie and play the center of attention and succeed, almost too well. in the end, you take me home because your best mate tells you to as he takes off with a woman you used to have a crush on. we don't get far. at the corner of sentmaringer strasse and weseler strasse, you stop, and tell me that you've never met someone like me before. a few hours later, a guy riding past the two of us sitting in the bus stop in front of andrea's house shouts a wish at us "good sex!"
that night, you told me that one day, i'd be a beautiful woman. it was a wonderful compliment, even if it meant i wasn't a woman then. i wasn't, really. i wonder whether we'd like each other today. i wonder whether you think i succeeded in becoming a beautiful woman. whatever that is, anyway.

sting: why should i cry for you. 1994.11. waking up to that song on a mattress in andrea's hallway. did i sleep at all? i'm hungover and in pain, physical and mental pain as you walk through the flat waking everyone up, that song on repeat. i remember exactly what happened last night. i remember sneaking out with you on your demand, and then telling you i didn't care anymore, that i knew what you'd wanted to tell me and that i was fine with it. i lied to you. i remember you telling me that you'd loved me. i remember us falling back into our old patterns, into our old familiar fucked up ways. i remember the aggressiveness and the pain and the tenderness gone. and yes, why should i cry for you? and what would it mean to say that i loved you in my fashion? you cheated, man, not me.
we fucked each other the previous night. not physically, even though you believe to this day that we did. we fucked each others' heads, and our bodies played along, aggressively. i think we tried to kill each others emotions. it felt as if we tried to rob each other of something. i think we succeeded. in some way.
that morning is the end. and i hate it. no, actually, that morning, i don't care.

new model army: green & grey. 1995.05. getting on a train at münster main station, putting on my headphones to block the outside world. i've got some thinking to do, with new model army in my ears, this is my day. i don't want stupid conversation in an interregio compartment to ruin it. it's a strangely warm early summer day. i'm wearing weird clothes, a white t-shirt and strange jeans that are too tight. i bunked a few hours of school this morning and caught a train instead and then you and i, we circled each other through your wonderful room for a while until you asked me whether i had made the trip because i wanted to sleep with you. and i said yes, and we moved to your bed and were soon naked and afterwards we talked about mark rothko. it was all fine and dandy. once we were dressed again, however, and i had to rush to get to the station on time, i'm supposed to leave kinda quietly to not alert your roommates who might tell that other woman. well, thanks for that.
i'm happy, still. this afternoon will stay with me. and i spent it with you. that other woman, or not.

the smashing pumpkins: tonight, tonight. 1996.07. lying in the living room of the house on main south road with lisa, drinking baileys, talking about men, about melancholy.

omd: how bizarre 1996.08. in a pub in a strange little motel near franz-josef, new zwaland, in the middle of the rainforest. it had been a wonderful glowworm walk to get there. drinking mantheits (?). feeling smarter than those kiwi experience pseudo backpacking people. making out in the hostel's living room with a strange american.

cinematic: see you round. 1996.08. a night of drunken fun at the dux de lux in christchurch, new zealand. wearing clothes that aren't mine (anna's marlene style jeans, lisa's black velvet blazer). admiring tom. being mistaken for lisa.

the whitlams: no aphrodisiac. 1998.05. writing the zine with timm at his parents' place on the first day of summer. laughing at our own jokes. writing all night. being jealous of his girlfriend. being happy, too. extremely happy.

echt: wir haben's getan. 1999.05. this is what ending a 2 year relationship is like. it's stoned making out in a youth hostel room with a virgin, as if you're half a decade younger than you really are. and putting on shitty music as you get back to the partyroom. i can't pretend not to have wanted this.

dave matthews band: say goodbye. 1999.08 standing on my balcony on a balmy night a few hours before the moon will darken the sun (and before i'll crash two cars in 48 hours). and in your eyes i see what's on my mind,you've got me wild, turned around inside.and then desire, see, is creeping up heavy inside here and i know you feel the same way i do now.
i know that you know that i know that the only reason you travelled those 800km on that motorcycle of yours is so that we can finally, finally, finally screw, 3 years into our friendship, 3 years into casual making out every single time we meet. and so we do it. it's strange and good and stranger, still. we don't sleep at all, and pick up anna at the train station at an ungodly hour, barely able to hide what we've been up to and some 100km of reckless driving later, we will lie on a picknick table, looking at the sun and the moon and feel the light fade.
these days, i miss you terribly, in some weird way or other, and have no idea where you are. i should to google you.

depeche mode: it's no good. 1999.10. i dislike your parties. i dislike your style. i dislike the things you do. i dislike your morals. i dislike your dishonesty. i dislike your attitude. i dislike your consumerism of sexual favours. i dislike those shitty three-piece suits you wear. but by god, christian, how much do i *still* want to fuck you? no, it's no good.

something for kate: big screen television. 1999.12. we're driving through the greyness of the niederrhein on the last day of a millenium. and i totally don't get the lyrics. and you tell me that i don't.

keith caputo: home. 2000.03. i'm sick in the head in a number of ways. and don't have anyone to come home to.

rhcp: parallel universe. 2000.05. at the final night party in nottuln (of all places!), longing, longing, longing for timm, for whom i shouldn't be longing for in the first place, pangs of jealousy towards ellen for having that closeness with him (it's beyond fucking obvious, that). feeling out of it, out of everything, leaving the partyroom through the window, walking through wet grass, downhill, through darkness, drunk, wanting to be held. one week away from trycyclics.

gomez: machismo. 2000.08. driving down king street in evan's triumph ("heidi") at night. driving across the bridge over the yarra, the flames of southbank lighting up the very instant we drive past.

radiohead: bulletproof...i wish i was. 2000.09. sydney. sitting opposite the opera house, almost under the bridge, listening to this song, writing. the sky's full of australian clouds, all fluffy, perfect, white. i'm getting sick and am freezing, despite the sunshine. a little earlier, i stood at the gap, thinking that this would be a great place to commit suicide, should the need ever arise again. i wish i could be who he wanted. all the time.
rewind. replay. rewind. replay. rewind. replay.rewind. replay.

richard ashcroft: a song for the lovers. 2000.09.don’t wanna wait, lord i’ve been waiting all my life but i’m too late again, i know but i was scared.standing in the middle of his room. paralysed. crying.
i'm overflowing with love and desire and wanting and melancholy. i want to preserve this moment forever, because i know we're falling apart.

rem: everybody hurts. 2002.07. it's my first morning back in melbourne, catching the train into town from essendon by myself, walking into the city from flinders street station. it's cold, there's a blue sky, a typical melbourne winter morning, a tram makes a bunch of pidgeons fly up, suspends them in the air and i take a mental photograph. a few steps further down elizabeth street, "everybody hurts" is on the street loudspeaker system of the cheapo downstairs strip joint.

the whitlams: cries to hard. 2002.09. all saturday mornings without him at his parents place blurred into one. being up early, having breakfast and endless cups of tea at the table, reading the paper back to front. showering late. getting dressed in dunc's sunfilled room, bright blue skies outside. i smell like sympathy for the skin and sui love and am putting on my red v-neck sweater and i'll freeze all day because it's too short in the back.

björk: joga. 2002.11. trying to convince myself, post-australia, that i like running. running away from the parental home on a grey autumny sunday morning. wearing a grey fleece beanie, courtesy of swatch. running along königstrasse, turning into kaiserstrasse, heading towards the new development, depressingly asleep this sunday morning, depressingly small houses, depressingly lovingly, tastelessly decorated, window colour drawings on the windows.
thinking: i am smarter than this. i will get away from this. my life will happen in essendon, vic. or maybe hawthorn. but not here. even if it means i'll have to like running.

archive: rest my head on you. 2002.12. driving out of lakes entrace. jim sleeping in the back of the car in the midday heat, just barely held at bay by the aircon. the sun über-instense, air reflected over the road. a giant wombat dead at the side of the road, its four tiny feet in the air.

blue rodeo: five days in may. 2003.05. montreal.

2raumwohnung: nimm mich mit. 2003.06. in michi's car, driving back to the city after a night of sleeping outside and skinny dipping, dirk and i on the backseat. it's just after noon, and hot already, all windows are down. my hair is still wet, i'm going commando, and i own the world.

eskobar: violence. 2004.06. leaving the "substage" in karlsruhe early as the eskobar concert is in full swing. i need to catch the last train back home. i'm alone. and strong. and happy. i just talked to paul dempsey and my camera broke as someone took a photo of the two of us. i'm happy.

u2: sometimes you can't make it on your own 2004.11, i'm kneeling in the middle of the parental living room on a wednesday morning, as my father's breastbone is being sawed open 20km away. i sing along. then cry. then wail. sing along. so that i can be strong later on. it works.

radiohead: there there. 2005.02.08. my life is different than it was a few hours earlier. i feel as if i am under a spell. there's electricity running throughout my body. and i come. and come. and come. and come some more.

a homerecorded wurlitzer tune. 2005.02. scary shit. this is it.