Let this book be an inspiration. Nothing more, nothing less. Bring some beauty into this world even though beauty can be ugly. Gently fall into the flow. Leave shame and conditioning at your front door. Search for the ones who contemplate truth.

Machig de Valence

Machig likes to speak of her work as “Tantric Poetry” because of the simple fact that tantra uses the power of desire to find that particular flow in life without being focused on pure pleasure seeking. She tries to find this sometimes transcendent flow by being absolutely honest and thus vulnerable. That does mean she is not afraid of the often hidden and darker side of love and sex which comes to light in some poems featured 'Your Body, my Poem', her very first book of erotic poetry and photographs. This book was born out of the visceral need of Machig to bring some kinky heartfelt sexuality in contemporary poetry. And, obviously, to get over her heartbreak. The pictures in the book are often raw photographs. Mostly shot on smartphone, they are a honest temoignage of Machigs own erotic journey. They are also an open invitation to a different world. What the reader reads and sees is their own voyage.

Through Berlin's kaleidoscope of bar stories—each standing alone like shots of vodka—trauma binds strangers and cities together. When two cousins reunite after thirty years,their shared darkness finally finds its way toward light.

This unconventional literary novel creates a rich mosaic of standalone stories, where characters weave in and out of each other’s narratives. Set mostly in Berlin’s diverse bars, the main storyline follows Laura, a Belgian costume designer who sought refuge in Berlin’s chaotic embrace in the early 2000s. Alongside the petite and timid Laura, the city of Berlin itself emerges as a second protagonist, its fractured history mirroring Laura's own trauma.

Laura's carefully constructed safe life in Berlin takes a U-turn when her cousin Jan appears in her favourite bar. Their shared childhood trauma pulses through the narrative. Yet amid the darkness, their reunion catalyzes healing.

Through raw yet accessible prose, each chapter contributes to a larger narrative, connected by trauma but illuminated by hope. Against a soundtrack of 80s music and Berlin's kinky, open-minded underground scene, the novel explores how cities, like people, can transform their scars into strength.