The Broken World, by Lorette C. Luzajic

A Dangerous Passion, photography by Studio Manasse (Austria), 1920s.

The Broken World 

Now that you have come 
to sort things out,
I am more 
confused than ever.
All hell 
breaks loose 
in midnight 

and it’s been years since
I heard midnight
knocking at my door-

I’ve made my life
so tidy
squished it crammed it stuffed it
with law and order.
I intended to keep 
the crashing winds at bay,
as if lists and yoga, or sorted silverware, 
could possibly protect me
from the gods of the sea.

I never know 
if the roads 
will bring you home, and
today 
the miles 
are written in your eyes,
the things you’ve seen, 
the things you’ve tried to hide,
and you are wearing the sun 
and the rain and the road 
and the endless 
prairie skies.

(If you can give it, I can take it
‘Cause if this heart is gonna break
 it’s gonna take a lot to break it.)

(I’m broken like a promise,
shattered like a dream.)

You are a storm that blows through here
galloping wild horses,
part human, 
but something else,
something wilder, unrestrained.

It doesn’t matter: 
every time you 
break my heart,
I will grow another one 
for you to smash
and treasure the hours 
in which 
it falls apart,
just to have something from you.

I can’t stop you 
from climbing across my roof
and into my window
if you need to get to me. 
Otherwise,
I don’t even know if 
you are dead or alive. 
Now, the great unknown, again.
You disappear 
as you arrive, 
without words, 
without reason.

Do you remember?
Once you said, you would do anything for me,
anything at all, 
you’d walk 1000 miles for me, you said, 
and the ferocity of  your conviction took me aback, 
how love blazed in your eyes, 
for me.

It was a promise you kept, 
arriving from the east
like rain on my roof.
But I had said, no, don’t you remember? 
I don’t want it, I told you. 
I won’t ask that.
You know all I’ll ever ask of you 

is to put 
your pipe down

for me.
Leave it down
I beg you, 
leave it down.

I will never, ever 
ask another thing.

Now as ever, your company is easy,
and holding you 
is comfortable, familiar sorrow. 
You ask about my work,
and about my meetings.
And whether I’ve found anyone.
My fingertips trail your scars,
fading rope at your throat,
feathers on your wrists.
Now, as if there were 
no years between us, 
and no grief,
we sprawl across the floor with
Johnny Cash on repeat, and it’s 
an apt soundtrack for all that we have seen, 
for the people we have been.

And yours is a lonely road, 
my most beloved friend,
but you’ve never questioned why I keep 
your heart with me as best I can.
Even so, I told you.
It was how tenderly you tended to
my injuries, how you 
tried to save me.

The air here is filmy and surreal,
emptied of you,
soapy and edged with grief.
I can’t fix 
the broken world.
It is you who could,
you who fixed my sink and my bicycle 
when you hitchhiked into town.

It’s only 2000 miles, 
you said,
repacking your backpack.
I’m clean now, woman, 
I’ll make it west, don’t worry. 

Lorette C. Luzajic

Originally published at Hood, and in The Lords of George Street, by the author, Mixed Up Media Editions, 2016.