Sometimes, I like to go around the mulberry bush. Wonder about things that obviously have no answer ‘cos the question didn’t even qualify as a question in the first place.

Sometimes, I like to think about my soul. Wonder what it looks like. I know it’s a really old-fashioned, uncool word, but it’s my soul, and therefore, matters to me.

I am not one to quote poetry. But totally agree with Tracy Chapman here:
Don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth'
Cause all that you have is your soul

Let me confess that these days I think a lot about my soul. Yesterday, I spent a while trying to conjure up an image.

A beaten road? That was three months back.
A squashed tomato? That was six months ago.
And now? It’s laughable really cos its so totally unromantic.It’s an old shirt. An old white shirt…and you can tell from the collar the amount of scrubbing and whitening that’s gone into it.

It’s been used, yes. And used badly and carelessly by the wearer. But what do you expect? It’s a shirt. It’s meant to be worn, with all puns intended.But the point is, it has been washed clean and is all ready to be used again. Used and usable.(I guess, what I am really trying to say is that I will survive. That I have survived, and that I am bloody proud of myself for it.)

But, then again, yet another question- why be torn and mended at will??

Waiting for sleep, I think about my soul. Plumb the depths. Wonder if in my anxiety to defend myself from potentially hurting encounters, I over reacted. If I took offense where none was intended.

Then your words come back to me, bringing in its wake, fresh hurt. I was never this sensitive. I swear I never was. Try as I might, I can never find the tears to cry anymore these days.

It’s just a pain that stretches on and on. A noiseless yelp that dies with the morning light. A long drawn howl that dies in my throat, lost in the night wind.

Deep down, this old shirt knows that this was how ‘it’ was always meant to be, that ‘this’ was its ‘destiny’. This ancient soul carries the wisdom of the hills. A wisdom that needs no words to validate it. An endurance and strength that it didn’t possess an eon earlier.

Of course I will survive. I’ve lived through an earthquake…you think, I can’t get through this tremor? But just one question before I am done, dear ‘you’, tell me…when all the stars have fallen out of your eyes, do you figure it will rob you of your sight?