Soul was a bad girl. At times, a terrible woman. Deep down, she yearned to be punished for the suffering she caused herself and others. Especially Heart. Or maybe she just wanted to be held. Accountable.
"Don’t be so hard on yourself," Heart said to Soul on his bed. Even though Soul left Heart for someone else, at least the first time she broke up with him. She left him for someone she barely knew but felt like she always knew: Poetry, who burned brighter than the sun, but was as elusive as a new moon—a brilliance to be experienced, but a flame that flickers beyond grasp.
At that point, Heart wouldn’t even call Soul his partner, so Soul justified her flawed behavior. She told herself she did the right thing because she didn’t act on impulse. She didn’t technically cheat on him, although later, she admitted she was in denial of emotionally cheating on him. Soul couldn’t stand the idea of betraying Heart, so she rushed to his home to tell him of her confusing feelings for Poetry, not realizing the ongoing damage about to unfold.
Heart’s door was unlocked, so Soul let herself in. She trembled as Heart’s dog licked her ankles, eager for affection, which she gladly offered. A freshly showered aroma reached her as she entered the cozy studio. So fresh and so clean. Heart’s naked body radiated a striking beauty that had Soul ready to back out of the whole plan. She could instead deliciously disappear into his freckles, his frame, his flesh.
"Are you unhappy with me," Heart asked Soul in a soft voice as she sat on the bathtub ledge, choking back the tears. "Did I do something to upset you?" That was the segue into the first time Soul left Heart.
They had a similar conversation but inverted after they slept together, over a year into their last breakup. This time, it was Soul inquiring if she had done something to upset Heart because he went from vying for her attention to distancing once he had it. Now that she knew what she wanted, he was rightfully cautious. Yet her anxiety flared and disrupted her mind with fearful assumptions.
In a sleep-deprived stream of consciousness, accompanied with self-bondage, Soul attempted atonement. If I can tie up my anxiety, it won’t distort my psyche, Soul told herself. Then she cried out, "Restrain my hubris! My arrogance! My ignorance!" Soul tied each knot tighter and tighter to wring out her internal chaos and self-destructive disposition—to lasso her negative self-talk.
When they last met, Soul twirled out of sync as Heart spun her on the asphalt. She was lost in outer space. Almost never in her body, except in his presence. In his arms. That’s how Soul knows Heart is her counterpart.
But, Soul hasn’t always known. She used to be fickle. She used to make irrational decisions based on mistrust. She used to expect the worst. It took years for her to figure this out: Soul fucked things up with Heart by ever leaving him in the first place.
Soul anchored in Heart’s crystal blue orbs. Eyes that never lie. Lips that always melt. For once, she knew 100% without a doubt that this is where she belonged—spinning in control instead of out of control. Heart’s point got her right in the heart chakra. Right where it counts. In large amounts. A gushing ensued, albeit possibly, maybe, too late.
Heart reassured Soul the door wasn’t closed, but she fell out of it anyway, into the void of regret, fear, and loathing. She grabbed onto a ray of light made of Heart’s smile, his voice, his face, his lips, his fingertips, his skin, his body, his whispers, his caresses, his sweetness, his pheromones, his laugh. But, Heart’s light did not break Soul’s fall. She descended to the bottomless pit of her flowered pain, and each dew-soaked petal revealed her true nature in reflections on her way down, down, down.
Have you ever experienced someone so beautiful that they take your breath away? Soul gasped for air. Heart caught her in the midst of her overwhelment. "Are you OK," he asked as she inhaled deeply—dizzy and afraid there’s just no way he’s actually into her.
"You’re out of my league, which is precisely 23,000 leagues under the sea," she said because Soul is abysmal when she’s dismal, which was at least 75% of the time she was in a relationship with Heart. At least by her retrospective calculations. Although, she could be rounding down. Soul likes to give herself a little extra rope.
Before the fall, Heart and Soul floated in bouts of bliss and talk of babies over breakfast, yet unbegotten. They bonded over dreams and nightmares. They held each other tighter and tighter like the knots in the rope binding Soul’s repetition compulsion to self-sabotage.
Then, when Death snatched Poetry, it made things even worse. Heart and Soul tried desperately to reunite, but conflict continued to tear them apart in outbursts, and resentments piled high. Their relationship ended, and Soul refused to forgive Heart, let alone process their final breakup. She drifted here and there, listless and lonely until the absence became unbearable. She gradually let Heart back in, and as they reconnected, their bond quickly grew stronger than she could have ever imagined. Soul no longer feared Heart’s insincerity. She trusted him completely. Heart’s mere presence intoxicated Soul with a tranquility she’d never known. For once in her life, she felt truly loved. She wanted so badly to return this love to Heart in every action, word, and thought. But, the timing wasn’t right, and Heart pulled away into sacred autonomy.
Soul hugged Heart as they stood at her car and said, "I really mean it this time; after everything that’s happened, you deserve to take all the time and space you need."
In that moment, Heart and Soul agreed, no matter what happens between them, everything will be OK. They finally have found total, unconditional love for each other. In whatever form it takes, their union will always be inevitable.
