Burning the Bridges

Last night when I was labouring hard in my bare minimum daily ritual of overthinking, I delved into a particular thought of burning the bridge for the sake of happiness and mental peace.

The expression “burning your bridges” means to act in a way that destroys any chance of returning to the way things were. When you burn your bridges, there is no going back. This concept has been used for military warfare and winning against your enemy but what about using this concept against yourself for betterment of your heart.

Why do we overthink or why do we want us to go back when we already are aware about what lies in past and how bad we have chance of surviving lies & betrayal? Why do we want to go back? 

Is our going back going to bring us more happiness or it might just be another reason for bringing more pain and sadness to us. 

I don't know if my decision of burning bridges back would bring anything good to me or it will lead to my futher ruin, I am not aware but today I am not afraid of writing these lines which makes me sad but in hope of better mental peace I ought to write those saddest lines.

My favourite poet Neruda wrote his saddest lines, I ought to write mine while remembering his poem -

"Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her."

I have decided to burn those bridges back to my past. It is extremely late of me to burn bridge in this month of August whereas it should have been in September last month that I ought to have decided to burn the bridges and move on towards the new road less travelled. Now since I have decided to burn the bridges , I remember what my favourite poet Neruda wrote:-

"I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine."

--- Abhishek Tripathi

     14.08.21