Sol Kim Cowell

AUTODECOMPOSITION OF A HUMAN SOUL

there’s a piece of me that got lost
in translation, in the space between
two hands jointly clasped. in the space between
synapses, lost in thought, lost in memory.
sometimes i wonder if it’s just one piece,
or if countless fragments of me have gone astray
and been swept under the rug by whoever has been
chip-chip-chipping away with a chisel at my heart.
i don’t know when i lost it, or how
it slipped out of my grasp —
perhaps with the grimy grip of a hand upon my upper thigh, or
perhaps with the thunderclap of an open palm upon my back, or
perhaps it wasn’t taken from me by someone else at all.
perhaps i lost it all on my own.
perhaps i’m a topiary of my own making,
and i’ve been carefully snipping at the branches
that dare to press outside of the lines i’ve so carefully drawn
for myself. i wish to stay the same from all angles, to all
viewers, but i bear the unfortunate condition of growth,
and so i must keep cutting.
or perhaps it’s not that i want to be one shape, but that i know
if i don’t twist and distort and bend over backwards,
i’ll be forced to confront another shape altogether.
if i don’t slice and shave and starve til i rot,
i’ll realise that i’m ugly.
but that would mean i did this to myself, that i
amputated my soul at the seams, and that just might be
a thought too terrible to bear. so i turn to cards and dice,
to mystics and prayers and destiny, and i whisper my secrets
to smiling women with notepads or frowning doctors with hairy ears.
and they tell me that i’m doing so much better than i was two months ago,
and they tell me that i just need to keep doing what i’m doing right now,
and they tell me that if the shape changes, i need to take more pills,
and they tell me that i’m barely recognisable anymore, and that’s a good thing.
so the day repeats once more, and i continue the cycle,
leaving a trail of jigsaw pieces behind me. i don’t look back
except for in the fragile, still moments of loneliness, when
i allow myself to consider for just a second — what if?
the clippers feel lead-heavy in my hands. i do what i must.