Never cut what you can untie.
//Joseph Joubert
When you are young you think – every bridge must be burned.
And sometimes, you don’t think burning is enough. It must be scorched earth, altogether.
There can be nothing left around you – it must be desolate and empty.
You ground your frustrations into that barren earth and salt it, too
just for good measure. Just to know that nothing, nothing, nothing
will ever grow there ever again.
But that is you, in your youth. Always running too hot, always ready to light a match,
to raze the ground and choke the hedge into lifelessness.
It’s not until later that you realize that burning bridge brings tears to your eyes anyway.
The smoke wafts up and embeds itself in your hair, your clothes,
until all you can smell is the wreckage of your rage.
And later still you realize that all your practice is in bridge burning,
when what you really need to learn is bridge building.
You cross the same river over and over.
Oh, it’s in different spots – sometimes rougher, sometimes smooth as silk
but it’s that same river, alright.
And you can’t remember for the life of you how to cross it
because the ache of burning through it is muscle memory now.
So, perhaps it’s true that no bridge needs to be crossed twice.
But maybe all you need to do is close the gate behind you,
maybe throw the key back in for good measure,
and move on.
Navel Gazing 