Burning Bridges

No one comes out clean after burning bridges.

Faces are painted a dusty grey, matching the dirt stuck deep within nails attached to wounded fingers. You’re lucky if your injuries are only scratches, or blisters, or even second degree burns from standing too long and too near the fire. These are superficial wounds, and so treatment is very straightforward. There would be scars, certainly there would be scars, but scars are meant to eventually be forgotten. The bleeding stops, the pain goes away, and so does the constant consciousness that there’s something foreign on your body. You get to live with scars and not be bothered by them until you breathe your dying breath.

But there’s a type of impurity that goes with you and never leaves after you burn bridges.

It enters your system and remains benign until it manifests itself in the most unconventional and inconvenient way. Until then, you are clueless about its malevolence. 

Sometimes it appears during a mundane moment, like when you’re preparing your first cup of coffee in the morning. You suddenly feel cold despite the warm liquid you are cradling between your hands. Because there was a time when someone else prepared it for you, and when he would hand over the coffee cup, his finger tips would brush against yours and that was enough to wake your soul. 

Sometimes it shows itself during an important occasion, like when you’re tuxedo shopping with your new significant other for the first time. While he discusses with the tailor which fabric to use and in which color, you’re transported to white walls, white sheets, white lights. Because there was a time when you cuddled with someone under a newly washed duvet, hair disheveled and bodies nude. His breath synchronised with yours was enough to paint crimson upon your cheeks. And that was the only colour you ever knew. 

Once impurity affects your breathing and dictates the rhythm of your heart, there’s no more saving you. You just have to prepare, mind and soul, for your inevitable demise.

There’s no cure for poison but poison itself. Too bad your poison is someone else’s cure.