Berlin

 

A conversation with a stranger

Across a rumpled unmade bed

The sound of her voice rolling

Against the thunder in my head

And I felt so low and tired

So full of hurt despair

Didn’t know where I was

Or how I’d arrived there

 

But I was talking to this stranger

The way I’d not talked for years

And she was sitting listening

Through all my words and fears

And she was talking to me

She said I understand

And she was crying too

As she held and squeezed my hand

 

And I talked for hours with this stranger

Just someone I chanced to meet

As I’d looked for salvation in a bottle

In that bar in a dingy Berlin street

Whose very quietness

Had lured me inside

To drink in my solitude

To sit and quietly hide 

 

Now I was talking to this stranger

And she’d made me learn

My life was worth its living

As I’d listened in my turn

We’d sat and talked for hours

Through that long summer night

Until breaking through the window

We saw the new day’s light

 

Then I’d made love with that stranger

Not really a stranger anymore

And then we’d left that room

Parted at that hotel 's door

Without a single backward glance

Just a stranger I’d happened to meet

Who’d given me back life by listening

In that bar on that dingy Berlin street