If you live deeply,
all the broken things in your life
will come begging to be mended.

They will make you believe love can
never come until you nurse them all
back to health.

It is impossible and you know it
because some things cannot
be made new again.

But love is too precious
to give up on it.

So you try clean living,
hot yoga, silent retreats;
You go vegan and volunteer
at the local co-op wondering
how much good you must do
to turn the karmic wheel
and be blessed.

These surface feedings
never quell the hunger.

But if you live deeply
with all the broken things in your life
that come begging to be mended,
you may, one day, cross
the impossible bridge.

You give up on the spotless cleaning,
forfeit the scale of shiny, new perfection
and you give your all to caring for this life,
healed and unhealed, broken and whole.

You break the rule of conditional love
by making love your condition.
Everything that you have been waiting
to come to you, then comes from you.

You wake up as a guest
in the house of love and
realise you have always
been welcome there.

Broken Things by Nick LeForce