“How can he be called Robert, and not Alexis or Sergei?” I complained to my friends over a video call. “He’s too complex for… Robert”, I explained. After a brief pause, Sam responds, “We can call him Bob” and both him and Alex burst out laughing. I gulped on the beer I was drinking, and let out a muted cry.
Who knew a week later of knowing this person called Robert, I would come to like the name, so much.
So here is an ode to a boy named Robert who lives in Max Beer Straße, nestled in an upscale and touristy neighbourhood of Berlin, the greatest city in the world.
Every woman fawns over Robert’s curls,
He proudly recalls telling his mother,
Each time she would beg him to chop them off,
But it’s not his curls that enrapture the maidens;
It’s him entwining his fingers into them,
tugging them, as if to tap into his wise head,
searching for a fact, a joke or,
occasionally even a rap song,
to which his head bobs sideways, eyes closed.
Robert can drone for hours,
over music, philosophy, people, and, surprisingly, even his own demons,
His eyes smiling and his bunny teeth gleaming, through it all,
But every morning, he goes silent while sipping his coffee,
and every night, he becomes pensive as he smokes his last cigarette of the day,
all on his small balcony that I was introduced to on my first day at his place,
boasting a fascinating, dazzling view of the Berlin TV Tower–
my favourite monument in my favourite city.
But as I spent the following days with him on his balcony,
watching his fingers twirl further through his hair,
his eyes sparkling like the Sekt in our glasses,
and the smoke from our cigarettes dissolving into the air, like time passing by,
I forgot the tower even existed,
The balcony became a monument in itself;
housing the depths of Robert’s thoughts.
Author’s note: While the Berlin TV tower is physically enormous, the small balcony and the conversations between the Author and Robert within felt just as emotionally and intellectually vast.
