like a stop sign

and keep going.

I pick you to finish

all my half-written poems

even though you suck

at writing poetry.

I pick you to finish this one

especially, which is basically

just a list of compliments

you’d be a hypocrite not to take,

so take it before I remember:

I’m mad at you, Asshole,

Butt Knuckle, Nutwad,

only human on Earth

who knows exactly what I mean

when I say god—I mean everyone

down here who understands why

when I get to heaven,

I will refuse to call it heaven

if the people I love

(who put me through hell)

aren’t there.

THE MUSEUM OF BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS

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 is a toaster. Beside it, a note:

When I moved across the country

I took the toaster. That will show you.

How are you going to toast anything now?

In another display there is a cell phone.

Written beside it, the words: He gave me

his own cell phone so I couldn’t

call him anymore.

There is 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 thirteen-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 ax used to chop the furniture

of a partner who had an affair, giving new

traumatic meaning to the phrase

splitting up.

There is a jar of Love Incense

with a note that says, It simply

doesn’t work. There is a display case

with a pair of papier-mache breasts

gifted by a woman whose husband

insisted she wear them during sex:

They were bigger than mine, she said.

They turned him on, and I left.

And in the Museum of Broken

Relationships in Croatia, there are 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 collection of thimbles

so I could be someone