- In Croatia in 2006,
Olinka and Drazen broke up.
Having no idea what to do with the relics
from the four years of their love,
they created the Museum of Broken Relationships.
For years now they've been collecting items
from the broken hearted all over the world.
Each day treasures arrive at the museum's door.
A small bottle of a lover's tears,
the last checkbook with both partners names,
a shiny watch with the pin pulled out.
The second he said I love you for the first time.
In the Museum of Broken Relationships there was a toaster,
beside it a note.
When I moved across the country I took the toaster,
that'll show you,
how you gonna toast any thing now.
In another display there was a cell phone,
written beside at the words,
he gave me his own cell phone
so I couldn't call him anymore.
There was a letter T from a keyboard,
from a couple whose online passion died
after their first real life encounter.
The keyboard taken apart in a commitment
to never again trust a computer key
to open one's heart.
In the Museum of Broken Relationships,
you can find a letter from a 13 year old boy
to his first love in Sarajevo
written before leaving to escape the war.
You can find an air sickness bag
from a couple whose relationship did not survive
the turbulence of long distance,
you can find an axe used to chop up the furniture
of a partner who had an affair,
giving new traumatic meaning to the phrase splitting up.
There was a jar of Love Incense,
with a note that says, it simply doesn't work.
There was a display case
with a pair of paper-mache breasts,
gifted by a woman whose husband
insisted she wear them during sex.
"They were bigger than mine," she said,
"they turn him on and I, left."
And in the Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia,
there were three juggling balls sewn by hand,
by my hands,
from material cut from my socks, you say,
though I am certain it was my underwear.
Either way, the juggling balls
were made from what I wore underneath,
what everyone could see
and sewn with precision
the way my grandma taught me before dying of a broken heart
and leaving me a thimble collection,
so I could be someone strong enough to keep things
from falling apart.
The first time I saw you, I fell apart,
I had no idea who you were.
You walked into a studio,
I was in and walked out,
minutes later I was a puddle in the parking lot,
my friend's hand on my back asking me what was wrong.
I couldn't explain it.
It was 2003.
I had no woo-woo in me back then.
I didn't believe in reincarnation,
I just knew I loved you once and would again.
Months later, still not knowing who you were,
I saw you on TV,
reporting the invasion of Iraq,
then the occupation of Palestine,
a blood fire in the sky above you and you not flinching,
or I thought you weren't flinching,
until we started sharing a bed
and I could see the war behind your eyelids,
how you tore the covers off every morning
like a kid unwrapping a gift,
like the dawn of a single day
was everything you'd ever put on your Christmas list.
I'd still be sleeping
when you'd leave for circus practice, circus practice,
where you'd walk the tightrope, twirl on trapeze bars,
then come home and pull me into the front yard
to teach me how to toss juggling balls
into a still blushing sky.
When I think about why we broke up,
why you flew all the way to Croatia
to let go of the juggling balls I made you,
I know it was because I was a terrible juggler,
I couldn't figure out how to hold something and set it free
at the same time,
so I dropped the ball,
convinced myself I was up in the air
about you and really, I was up in the air about me.
It's what we do,
we turn our bodies into museums of broken relationships,
blame the checkbook, the affair, the bottled up tears,
blame the toast going stale the day after the wedding,
we rip the letter off the keyboard
instead of control, command, escape, delete,
say it was the turbulence of long distance
instead of the baggage unclaimed.
But at the carousel of clarity,
otherwise known as 15 years of therapy,
I see I wasn't running from the war back then,
I was running from the peace, the love,
I did not believe I was worth,
and because that lie held so much grief,
I don't know that I ever got over you.
As much as I got under the engine of myself to fix
the machine of my love which now runs okay,
but still runs way too much,
if you know what I mean,
and I know you know what I mean,
because this was not the first lifetime,
we said goodbye,
without wanting to say goodbye, was it?
(gentle music)