When All That’s Left Are Lonesome Islands & Burning Roads

We have become
almost religious
about burning bridges.

I wonder sometimes
how eventually
we will get anywhere at all

once they’ve all
gone up in flames.

A bridge was never a promise.

Yet we burn it like a betrayal.

I suppose we might as well
take a wrecking ball
to every street,
every sidewalk,
every country road
that ever carried us
somewhere painful.

It was never a promise.

It was passage.

A way to cross
from where you were
to somewhere
you wanted to be.

Sometimes
to someone.

So you go.

You cross the water.

You spend an afternoon there.
A season.
A year.

You learn the view
from the other side.

You let somewhere unfamiliar
become somewhere
you know by heart.

But eventually,
more often than not,
you must head back toward home.

Sometimes
the person you crossed for
comes back with you.

Sometimes they do not.

The bridge never said
they would.

It never promised
that every crossing
would become a migration.

It never promised
that because someone waited
for you on one side,

they would belong
on the other.

Still,

we reach the far bank
alone

and suddenly
want matches.

As though the bridge
has failed us.

As though being carried
somewhere beautiful
creates an obligation
to remain there.

As though returning
means we should regret
having crossed.

I don’t.

I went somewhere
I am glad exists.

I knew you there.

For however long
I was allowed to.

And when it was time
to leave,

the same bridge
that carried me toward you

carried me home.

It did not betray me.

It saw me safely there,
and it saw me safely back.

There is nothing
to avenge in that.

Nothing
to destroy.

When did it become so noble
to harm what’s kept us safe?

Not every ending
needs smoke.

And not every bridge
we cross back in bandages
deserves the blame
for the wounds.

Life hurts.

Love hurts.

Even beautiful places
can send us home bleeding.

And instead of setting fire to them all,

I would rather spend my time
mapping the ones

I would still cross again.

Some roads
should never be revisited.

That is true.

But some bridges
can simply remain

quietly spanning the distance

between somewhere
I once was

and somewhere
I am grateful
I got to go.

It’s no easy feat
building a suspended connection
between places
that would otherwise remain apart.

And there are much easier ways
to get firewood.

So if a bridge
carries me safely across,
which is all it ever promised,

I think I owe it
the same kindness.

I would rather leave it standing
than punish it
for not becoming a home.