ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴᴀʟ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪᴠᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ ᴀꜱ ᴀɴ ᴀᴅᴜʟᴛ, ᴏʀ ꜱᴏ ɪ ʙᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇᴅ, ᴏɴ ᴀ ᴘʟᴀɴᴇ ɪɴ ᴊᴀɴᴜᴀʀʏ 2019

marisa

I come away from Berlin feeling, frankly, a little shell-shocked and unable to verbalize precisely what that even means. I think of waiting for the cab ride home on Saturday morning, Rex staring blankly forward in a catatonic state (I cry remembering it) as a cold light seeps into the four-floor dungeon behind us. A single thought reiterates and flits through my head – that after an admittedly underwhelming first few nights and a series of freezing stints in hours-long queues, we experienced a weekend of unparalleled hedonistic pleasure. We pushed our bodies to their extremes and were rewarded with a seemingly endless sensory assault I didn’t even know was possible, from which I had to be dragged away night after night after night. How could you voluntarily leave such a perfect combination of –

This is where I faltered, sobbing relentlessly on the plane ride home due to a mixture of horrible speed-ketamine comedown, ridiculous anxiety that I had somehow ruined all my relationships with my recklessness, and sheer exhaustion. The perfect combination of what? My head spins trying to grasp at an adequate explanation. I’m just fumbling for words and this singular attempt at jotting down something, anything, so I don’t forget, so my experience bears meaning, has been waylaid for days because I’m held back by the fear that words aren’t enough and oh god somehow this run-on sentence is too much, language is too much, transcribing my thoughts is inherently an exercise in overly flowery verbosity because I don’t know how else to write but maybe state-based memory [a term Rex jokingly (maybe?) mentioned] will help. I have surrounded myself with three baggies containing cocaine of various purported purities and racked up the requisite ratio of ketamine (70/30 for most dancing, 60/40 if the crowd’s really bad, 80/20 now because I still need to type) for appropriate head-swimming-ness (can’t say “swim” without internally referencing the use of “SWIM” acronyms on forums) and lack of inhibition (briefly explored while drawing on ketamine – “expressing myself”/creative pursuits become easier). In summary, I did a lot of drugs in Berlin and had a good time and for some reason felt that I was (am?) a changed person. At first I believed I had to write about this supposed life-changing experience in order to fully understand it, but after further consideration perhaps it is enough just to acknowledge that I had a good time and leave it at that, to document this solely for memory. How have I fucking typed so much and recalled nothing in text?

The nights become chapters in and of themselves, characterized simply by the strongest effects I felt of whatever drugs I took then.

Christine hands me a pressed pill. I don’t even know what it was. Took the whole thing. Rex and I take too many pills recreationally and spend so much time splitting the damn things that the whole rigmarole of carefully biting one in half in the middle of the club immediately exhausts me. An aggressive body search has left me without cocaine for the night and as I take a single drag of the joint Matt brought, I nervously attempt to dance off the residual discomfort from the whole ordeal. It’s not hard, the DJ is mixing vinyl effortlessly and we’re so close to the speakers I can feel them. The snares don’t cronch here, they become you. We come up in pieces, Rex floored for the majority of the evening on the Sofa (there’s always a Sofa) as Matt flits about, chattering endlessly about various neuroses but it’s fine, they’re fine. Techno is about texture, he tells us at some point in the night. Christine is a wavy island always but two feet away from me and there are moments when we pause and look at each other gleefully, touch head to shoulder. Uncharacteristically, I dance on a bench for a while. I haven’t spoken much about the dancing because it’s endless, omnipresent, sweaty, and then a thin arm reminds me it’s 7:00 a.m. and I need to sleep (I could keep going but I need to sleep). It’s misty and bright as we shiver in coat check. A bonfire?

SIDEBAR
I consider my behavior that evening an anomaly – maybe previously it would’ve been, as I explained to Rex, a result of low self-esteem and need for external validation, neither of which apply here. If anything, for the first time I felt bold and unfettered enough to pursue whatever I wanted. I feel as though I’d unlocked my cunt. My flesh container still doesn’t feel like my own all the time but the closest I’ve felt to comfort in my own skin is when I left it parked in the Grotto during the khole. Rex fucking loves to proselytize about the joy of exercise, reveling in the physical ability of one’s body – is luxuriating in my nakedness the same?

Long nails always make me feel more like myself. Long red nails are a sword and a shield (and scoop, to be honest) and with a matching lip I feel demonic. I never need to pack the Nars Powermatte but am glad I did as I stare at myself in the restroom mirror and needlessly reapply. It marks the dregs of a Marlboro Red I bum off someone else in the line and I kick the red butt into a literal hole in the wall. I’m wearing a cage-frame corset and a matching garter belt and stockings and it bears mentioning because while I love lingerie I’ve never stripped down to it in public before. Sobriety and the ridiculousness of the evening set in. Why was I waiting? We don’t have the speed or ketamine and my phone is dying, dying, “sorry I just got gang banged lol”, dead and suddenly a grinning Johannes and a dazed Christine appear (an inseparably intertwined unit last I saw them), followed shortly by Rex and the stall door closes. A frenzy of powders and we reenter the mess of flesh. Everything hits as I meander across flights of stairs (nine steps to a landing because counting helps counteract), concrete hallways lined with innumerable enclaves for unmentionable what have you (the initial baby shock has long left and in its stead a placid delight at the localized mundanity of it here), one sweat chamber of a dance floor after another until I have to flatten my wits, gather myself against an empty stretch of wall because I can’t fucking walk [another half pill, as if that’ll somehow help (always hoping it’ll hurt)]. We roost on the mezzanine (after another sort-of Sofa, hello again). Christine’s bare legs press against mine but she’s drifting away as I come back to myself and embarrassingly enough now all I want to do is kiss everyone.

INTERMISSION
We struggle and fail to figure out a Rick Owens dress.

And we’re back! in the reliable front-right corner, surrounded by scaffolding and is the ceiling leaking (Rex has aptly dubbed this area the Grotto, a name I enjoy partly because of the association with treasure and submarining orphans) or is it just sweat? Rex chants out requests for bumps (“two ket one speed!”, order up as I lift a nail to his nose) and cigarettes (with my outfits’ general lack of actual pockets, tucking a mythical 30-pack into 20-denier thigh-highs is my new all-time favorite carry) as he loses himself.

The DJ drops “Living in a Vacuum” by Christian Smith and the rest is a blur. This is the peak – buoyed by artificial confidence and a hand on the back of my neck and exhilarating speeeeeed I dance until morning. Getting dressed again feels unnatural.

We’re back in bed at 9:00 a.m. stumbling through a half-conversation about transcendental moments of bliss. For the umpteenth time this trip I disassemble and pick at dürüm döner mit allem und Club Mate Ice-T (this variant is slightly sweeter and less yerba mate-flavored; granat is trash) and listlessly pack various sheer black nothings in a haze of denial (of my tiredness, of the portentous reality that this is our last night, one last night).

That third night was lost to dirt weed spliffs and an endless false detour in a desperate attempt to prolong the eveningmorning.

Again I could keep going but I need to sleep again.

marisa is is from los angeles and is distinctly not a writer. an interior designer by trade, marisa is primarily interested in talking for herself, going down rabbit holes of forum threads that were misinterpreted on twitter for the Post, russian suprematism, deleuzian smooth space, collecting pre-2004 Helmut Lang, bent tubular steel, the perfect shade of red, anagram games, lines, and creating intentional space between said lines. find her on the crossword leaderboard @crosswordho; @porkbub everywhere else.