Have you seen my soul?
Somewhere along the way I lost it: Lost it in the alleyways of this cold world.
I tried constantly to not be real and so I took a con- form of myself
To try and conform to self but I only ended up misplacing myself- ish
And that was selfish to my soul for like an éclair the sweetest part of me was within
And yet I tried so hard to color up and package my hard exterior just to diffuse your senses from excavating what I had inside, a treasure.
And just like this world the deepest part of me, the flame of who I am is within,
But just like environmental degradation plaguing the earth,
The trash and junk that I easily synchronized with my flesh started to seep slowly into my soul
And the flame of who I am was suppressed, even more; it robbed the life from my cells
And logically the only outcome would be that even if I sprayed 6 liters of the best cologne,
You would still smell my soul stink.
Have you seen my soul?
I deliberately hid it when I was asked if I had one.
I held it by its mouth and told it not to make a sound or otherwise I would exile it away forever.
It tried to breathe but instead I used up all the life intended for it
It tried to eat and yet all I left it were crumbs of daily I’m sorries and I will change notes stuck by its bed.
I never took time to build it but instead I had all the time in the world to intoxicate it with venom that even snakes would quiver when asked to harbor in their fangs.
Daily I would drag my soul on a leash through the alleyways that it begged me never to pass through.
In the presence of my fellow hollow beings we exchanged stories that with each utterance, we could see our chained souls drained of their life.
We desired to be masters of ourselves for the world had numbed our souls to the point the only feeling we believed we could feel was if we numbed our souls even more.
I was nothing but flesh.
I could feel my bones whistle sad tunes as I walked with my unconscious soul lying on my arm like a waiter’s towel
All of a sudden my arm felt light.
My soul was gone.
I ran back to the alleyways but my fellow hollow beings did not recognize me.
The alleyways spat me out with the force of hands like logs that mercilessly performed the Heimlich maneuver on a child.
I then realized that my soul is what made these hollow beings recognize me.
It had fought to its very last to make me visible in a sightless world.
I now had nothing without my soul.
I had to find my soul.
I traversed every land that I thought my soul would hide but just realized I was looking in places where my flesh would hide instead.
For the first time even my hollowness felt hollow and I let the sleep carry me along the sewers that my flesh had come to love.
I now knew the feel of soulless tears on scarred flesh.
When I awoke, something felt different.
I could see beyond what my eyes had been trained to. Those tears had triggered a cleansing.
I saw the leaves dance and flowers move gracefully just as a father teaches his daughter how to dance for the very first time.
I did not understand this but yet it understood me.
I realized that it could have only been a language of praise in thanksgiving for their existence.
Who then were they praising for it was not themselves like we hollow beings were used to.
Why was it so beautiful? They told me to follow their tune of praise and as I did I could no longer deny who I was and why I was.
As soon as my flesh succumb I heard a victory cry and my legs yielded and ran to a field where I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.
There I found my soul, swaying like the leaves and dancing like the flowers, praising one other than itself
And I saw you Lord, and in finding my soul, I found you.
The most beautiful sight my eyes had ever seen.
