Broken Things

Does this ever happen to you: someone asks you a question and in that question you hear ten questions?

And you have the option of being quiet.

And you have the option of being mysterious.

But instead, you find yourself vomiting the truth onto the Altar of Broken Things.

And then the truth is somewhere outside of you like a helium balloon that you've lost your grip on and you're like, "shit. I need to get that back immediately." But it's too late. You can't. And so you throw your hands up and hope it lands right. This has happened to me a few times in the past couple of months.

In one instance, it cleared the room.

In others, it didn't. In most instances, it is a fucking relief to say what needs to be said instead of letting it fester.

Alessandro says that vomiting the truth onto the Altar of Broken Things is cruel. To myself. To other people.

And maybe it is.

He believes it is unkind to break a thing and then vomit truth on it much later. It is better to leave it alone. Like this: if you see something you have broken in the past, on the street, let's say as you are walking along, it is best to look away and keep walking.

I've tried doing this, believe me, I have.

But I'm not much good at it.

It's not like I am mean or crude. Just frighteningly lacking in personal boundaries. My own, that is.

My mother says this is a horrific lack of restraint and discipline. When I tell her things that I find myself saying to people, she is appalled. "Why would you do that?" she gasps.

This is how people with restraint act. Like you are crazy or like a spoiled child running amok. Like your inability to hold things in makes you a flight risk or scarily, erratically unpredictable.

I am wary of wreckage. Sometimes I feel like I can remember things that I broke not just a year ago or five, but lifetimes ago. Sometimes, I am too scared to venture into the wreckage of something that I feel I broke so long ago, that it can't ever be fixed. And not even the truth can fix it. Not even a million apologies. And sometimes you see something or feel its presence as you are walking down the street and the weight of all those lifetimes, the gravity of it pulls you in. You have no choice. And you can't just keep walking. You have to at least acknowledge it, at least stop and say that you remember how things were, before you broke them. Maybe this was a million years ago. And you wish you had known better than to ever have broken them in the first place.