Kerstin

I have studied until now. Almost 1 am here. On a Saturday night. No exams in the near future. Obviously I do not have a partner. I do not dislike studying, but there are moments in which I would like to have a girl to spend an evening with. To fall asleep with. To hold hands with. To kiss. To have sensous sex with.

Still, I catch myself thinking about Kerstin. We met in hospital. She suffered from borderline personality disorder. We were roommates. She was a punk. A beautiful punk, dark inside. I remember that she used to listen to German punk and gothic music, and I fell in love with her while she was showing me her CD collection (yes, she had CDs, I did and do so as well). Kerstin was totally self-destructive. We went out several times together, and she brought me to a gay bar, where everybody thought we were together. She was still thinking about her ex girlfriend, with whom she had discontinued contact just a couple of weeks before, after they had broken up, the very day in which the rings they wanted to exchange with each other had been delivered. She did not want a relationship, maybe. But she flirted with me, and so did I with her.

Kerstin became an obsession for me. A negative obsession. The time after we met was not easy. I still was officially together with my ex boyfriend, and I had troubles accepting my homosexuality. At some point, another patient, a coward named Maurice, had the brilliant idea to give Kerstin cocaine. She was alcohol addicted already. She took the drug, and after some time she could not live without. She started taking heroine as well.

I think this was the beginning of the end. She started having many partners, casually, whomever was available was ok. She was hospitalized many times, in many places, and in the end I could not do anything to save her. She did not have a future, and her present was really not worth living.

Sometimes I doubt that she still lives. She was so devoted to her self-destruction that I think she might have reached the goal. She used to perform also small criminal acts such as dealing and stealing.

I could not save her. I was already busy saving myself. The difference between her and me has always been that I wanted to live, while she wanted to waste her life. Still, I would like to have a kiss to remember.