i've been stabbed

that's what it feels like, anyway. for the past two months, since the break-up, i've had a burning sensation over my left shoulder blade which ranges from a concentrated spot of pain, like a knot in a muscle, to a burning that covers my entire shoulder blade and spreads to my tricep, kind of tingly and numb around the edges.

i know it's nothing muscular. it started with the break up, and it has intensified as things got worse. or, rather, more final. i've tried stretching, i've tried heat, i've tried alleve. no effect. it's in my head. or, rather, my heart. this is a clear physical manifestation of my emotional and spiritual pain.

here's what i think. if our bodies are the vessels of our souls, and we love another person so deeply that we feel connected to their soul -- if you love them so that they are in your blood, in your skin, your breath -- so that when they are gone, you remind yourself of them -- then, when they leave you, your soul has to disentangle from theirs.

my soul, for the past two months, found this spot on my shoulder blade. i don't know why. it's near enough my heart. maybe my heart's too strong, or maybe it isn't "my time" yet. maybe i was mortally wounded by an ax blow to my left shoulder in some past lifetime, or in many, in some past war, and this particular spot on my body is weak. or maybe not weak, but predetermined by my soul's past history to be kind of a portal, an entry point, an exit route.

to disentangle itself from alison's soul, my soul used this spot on my shoulder blade to do its work. it's still doing it. it still hurts like hell. it had to leave me, and i think a lot of the pain has been the result of me unconsciously trying not to let it go, trying desperately to hold on, to my soul, to her soul, to what we had, to what she ruined. but the soul knows no boundaries, and when it needs to go, it goes.

and in its leaving, and in my desperate grasping, i have felt the fierce power of my own soul leaving my body to do what it needs to do, burning my flesh, tearing my skin, pulling itself out of me to disperse in the universe, to do the reverse dance, to disentangle itself from her so that i can survive.

i think what i'm feeling now is it coming back into me. my soul is returning. my wound is still fresh, it still aches, is still sensitive to the touch. but i'm hoping that just as the leaving caused this metaphysical rupture, this spiritual laceration, that the returning will be eventually like a soothing balm, like a slow gradual repairing of the damage.

that's what i think. that's where i am. peace.