Soulmate

A poem

Soulmate

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

I used to believe it.

This idea that one person
would walk into my life,
step into my heart,
two hearts joined as one,
one among eight billion,
one joined heart
mystically one forever
or at least until
death do us part.

Death and then pretending can stop.
And start pretending all over again.

A new lover emerges
at just the right time
to fill this hole left in me,
just the right shape
to fill this gaping hole that
no other being could have filled,
filled and fulfilled,
all and every need
I could ever have,
to have and to hold
from this time now
and forevermore.

This reunion the preacher man
talks about could get interesting.

I used to believe it.
A soulmate.

Maybe I still do.

How about I reunion
with myself,
learn all there is to know
about my inner workings,
stroke every curve and every scar
of my own body,
praise my pure potential
and see me through 
every lost attempt,
kiss my own neck
and love me for 
just who I am

and actually mean it.

I am my own soulmate.
I was destined to love myself
and pour myself out into me.

No, I’m not a cynic,
I’ve just seen the other way,
two abandoned people who
fulfill the others every nightmare,
wishes heaped on the other 
donkey ‘til neither can move
let alone stand,
so they lay in their barn
side by side in silence
but hey at least the weather is nice.

Legend has it
and it’s a mystical legend,
that one who knows the dark night
and emerges in sparkling honesty,
one who has stopped looking to be filled
and finds they already are full
can see soul everywhere.
Soul in thunder and torrential rain
and silver lined clouds 
bowed in a double rainbow,
soul in the neighbor who yells
so many obscenities
and in the way that neighbor cares
for an ailing parent,
soul in every person 
that catches the eye
and the physical pull that grips
when it’s least expected,
soul inside a silent search
where lines between
air and body
blur into a vanishing mist.

I am getting to know my soulmate
and they are the one who I look out from.

Let me walk with you,
your soulmate and mine
arms around shoulders
and hands in back pockets,
drawing close
with a whispered promise
that you will never complete me
and you were never supposed to anyway.

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Thank you for reading! If you are so inclined, leave a comment about what strikes you, speaks to you, or stirs in you while you read. I look forward to whatever dialogue may happen here, and in just a few days I will be following this poem up with a reflection on how this poem emerged into being.

Brian

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