Second Helpings
by John Brehm
I wear my heart on my sleeve,
or rather both sleeves, since
it’s usually broken.
Sometimes when I join my hands
to pray, the jagged edges
briefly touch,
like a plate that fell and cracked
apart from being asked
to hold too much.
Don’t chase my devils away, or my angels may flee too.
— Ranier Maria Rilke, on declining to be psychoanalyzed by Sigmund Freud. (via the-jesuve)
It all happens and then
it happens again.
I hang my life up on a
white wall in the museum of broken
things.
In the other rooms there are mirrors pieced together
with tape. A wall of peeled wallpaper holds up
a showcase of leftover hearts. Old railroad
tracks. A wall full of doorknobs. A couch stripped of
everything but its springs.
The souvenir shop is full of
empty chairs. They’re ghosts, the woman
at the register says, flipping through her
magazine.
And everyone just
nods.
There is a special exhibition tonight on
a man whose bones are made out of
glass.
He sits on a chair with a sign on his
lap, reading:
Break me.
Please.
And men and women are lining up
for miles to
see him.
Old women
lean on their baseball bats in the
hot August heat. Children
swing their mallets above their heads
and show each other how hard they can hit
the pavement. My uncle is sifting through his
father’s golf clubs, trying to pick out the right
one.
Because this exhibition only lasts
as long as he does,
and no one wants to miss out
on all the
fun.
— “Museum of Broken Things,” Shinji Moon (via commovente)
We’ve been alone too long.
Let’s be alone together.
Let’s see if we’re that strong.
— Leonard Cohen, “Waiting for the Miracle” (via fuckyeahmrleonardcohen)
