The Thing With Broken People
The thing with broken people is
they let the light out & it’s beautiful,
the light—fierce & fragile—
and sometimes like the sun you can’t look
and sometimes you bask in it—not asking
because you don’t want to ask—
what it is that’s burning.
The thing with broken people is
they bring their own silence to the room
carefully—like a large bowl of iced water
they can’t set down—and all you can do
is admire their concentration—
the white of the skin on their fingers
where they hold the glass bowl tight.
The thing with broken people is
pieces of them are sometimes elsewhere—
scattered by whatever wind blows through them.
Maybe you have a piece yourself
in a carrier bag or box someplace—
or the back pocket of your jeans
after a cycle in the wash.
The thing with broken people is
—if they break easy now like all
fractured things—and heal in awkward
ways—the way some bones mend
broken—every break needs its own kind
of tending—in its own arc of time—
because healing is harder than it is
beautiful—& wears a less bewitching light.
Mathew Lyons
Mathew Lyons is a London-based writer and historian. He tweets at @mathewjlyons.
About This Poem
The poem is about a group of people I knew a few years ago, all at different steps in the dance – awkward, ungainly and astonishing in equal measure.