Today we wondered if you had a soul.
Not if you’re mapped out, we know enough to understand how much of you is predetermined. Your eyes, if they’ll be brown or green, your height, how likely you are to have dementia or doubled joints, or hair like your fathers that grows long out of your nose. Will you have to trim it like he does in the wet fog of the bathroom mirror, leaning to find the perfect reflection in the whir of the blades?
And how long will that take you to discover, baby? Will you be grown and married before your wife gracefully slips the trimmer under the Christmas tree? Will she advise you to open it the night before Christmas eve? Will she smile when you do and gently say I thought you could use something like this.
You’ll kiss her of course, even if it’s not the best present you’ve ever received, but you’ll kiss her and say thank you because we’ve taught you that affection and respect are tantamount in any relationship that’s going to last.
But where is that part of you now, baby? The part that wants to kiss her, the part that decides to use the clippers in the bathroom that night. The part that stares at yourself in the mirror as she waits for you in the shower carrying that tiny sea monkey that will become your own child. Where is the part of you that part that wonders - What is a soul? And when will it arrive?
Where is the part of you that will exist inexplicably inside of a brain, that will write like your mom or know airplanes like your dad, or sing made up songs in the shower that no one else will hear? Where is that essence beyond biology, that sits in yourself when you’re trying to go to sleep, that dreams unknowable dreams that wake you up, the smell of them, the taste of them, still wafting around your senses?
Will consciousness snap into place like touch or smell or sight? Or does each time you wake reset the fragile memory of time and space, as if you are each time born - conceived of consciousness over and over and over again.
Where is the part of you that draws silly faces in the fog of the bathroom mirror or laughs with her as her nipples smart in the shower, or holds her hair while she vomits in the sink. The part of you that worries bone throttling worries about cleft lips, and kidnappings, and children who scream and scream and scream.
Where is the part of you who buries yourself in her belly, hot water streaming down your closed eyes, matting your hair into a thin sheet. Where is the part that speaks muffled words against her wet skin, “Hey wonderful, this is me, your father speaking.”
The part of you who presses his cheek against her soft thin frame and under the din of the shower tries to hear your baby move.
“It’s too early, my love.” She strokes your temple with a finger as you look into the big brown tired eyes of this adoring woman that you feel so lucky to be in love with. Where is the part of you that feels lucky?
Is it inside of me now? Washed warm in the wet down dark? Spinning circles in my belly?
Do you have cheeks yet?
Have you discovered spinning?