Sunday Poetry: Burning Bridges

by: Madelaine Bauman

Teetering on eggshells again and again,

Skating on the blades of lost opportunity and broken trust

I’m just waiting for one of us to slip and fall

We’ve tripped each other long enough

But you’re never satisfied with just bruising an ego

You want to rip out dreams by their roots too.

The roaring of blood in my ears

Is like the cradle of the sea

This place I’ve returned to isn’t home

But, instead, a proverbial Brazen Bull

You’ve soaked the brain in petroleum

With the misdemeanours of my mind

So I must pray for my anger to still

Before verbal fireworks, from an overworked tongue

Push me over the edge, into the fire.

I’ve slowly blazed trails through my subconscious

That you will never find

The map is lost, though I’ve tried to give you a hand

You slapped it away, determined to reach the endpoint

And, instead, I watched, as you carved a path of destruction

Trying to cross a bridge I’d already set on fire.