Twelve (Under The Moonlight)

One night, under the moonlight, I was too anxious to think. So, I ripped my body apart in two, just to touch my own soul.

My hands were red, but my mind was white, the light inside only spread more. My soul shed off my body like a disposable onesie. Before my eyes stopped moving, I saw a crown of flowers and bones on my soul. I presume, the flowers were for my flesh and the bones for my skeleton. After all, what we shed also becomes an inevitable part of our identity.

My soul glowed white under the moonlight. There were glowworms in the bushes and my body couldn’t run after those. In trying to live, I killed myself. My soul stayed glued to where my body lay bleeding out of guilt. In order to escape, it had killed its own self. It’s foolish to consider the soul and the body apart. Are the joys of the physical world not worthy? Not sublime enough? Who decides so?

I see my soul shaking its head frantically, running around in circles, trying to get rid of the flowers and bones atop its head, almost like a mad animal. I see my body go cold. Who is responsible for this? In the forest of the inner mind, why did I let the society or the world in?

I miss the days I had a body which turned its head towards the warm sun. I miss the nights I had a soul which tuned itself to the rhythm of the world. There was no peace outside. But life was more than a sum total of its elements. There existed magic that could never be accounted for, slipping through the cracks, lighting the forests up in colour.

Why did I get driven to the extremes? Why did I hate myself? Why did I give up hope? Why did I sit between my two existences instead of being one with them? Who will answer for my sins? I don’t have a life anymore.

When the morning arrives, they’ll find a dead body amidst the forest that refuses to decay. They’ll find a soul running around the trees, the breeze and the grass that keeps on losing its essence to those beings that still live. There will be no execution, only pity. No one will find me, as I watch everything silently, till the end of time.

It is my punishment. I killed myself. I keep killing myself over and over. When will I learn better?