Berlin is a bitch with a black eye and a gold tooth who’ll punch you in the face and give you whatever stitches you need to stick around for the next uppercut to the jaw. Each of Berlin's knuckles is a legion of landlords who will evict you in the midst of a global pandemic and keep half your Kaution because fuck you, really.

Berlin will kiss those bruises with the couches and spare rooms of friends who have taken the same beating. Berlin with her WG nightmares and k-hole dreamers has a habit of stitching together found families from her meanest left hooks.

Berlin is a bitch with a too-short summer and a jab-cross winter that’ll knock you flatter than the half-drunk beers abandoned along Sonnenallee. Berlin eats the souls of her lovers and dares call them lost when they beg for change on her U-bahns. Berlin grows out her bush(es) so you can have sex or piss or shit in peace in her parks; she winks at you from spaeti doorways and shouts obscenites at you in Kotti. Berlin is a cheap date who makes sure you’re never more than 5 minutes from your next beer or 3 months from the end of your sublease.

Berlin paints her nails purple and blows smoke ring portals into every bar - fuck your fresh-cleaned fast fashion that’s okay because you got it at Humana, you will leave this place stinking of cigarette ash even if you don’t smoke. Berlin’s clothes fall off in the street no matter how cold or wet it is. Berlin bets her bike lanes against your helmet, you dweeb.

Berlin is drunk on her cheap sekt and cheaper beer; she belts out techno homages to the jackhammers that tore down her Wall and screams with her ambulances until the Turkish wedding car horns drown her out.

Berlin drinks the shopkeepers’ spit on Karl-Marx-Strasse and wipes her mouth with startups’ bankruptcy papers. Berlin wants to be socialist but keeps evicting them all. Berlin wants to be anti-racist but keeps calling the cops. Berlin wants to give you as many scars as she can before spitting you back out into the rest of the world, because she knows a good scar is a good story, and she’s got a reputation to think about. Berlin, Berlin, you make it so hard to live here, but don’t make me leave - ich liebe deine Falafel zu sehr!