Spring-loaded doors slam shut

Locked from the inside.

70, 80, 90 years each.

Barreling forward

Lost.

Never content.

An intrinsic need

for something intangible.

Just out of reach.

Something less lonely

than 7 billion people.

Homesick, for a place unrecalled.

Always on the tip of the tongue.

A truth impossible to swallow:

The idea of oneself is an oxymoron.

How can souls collide,

When experience is personal?

When existing in boxes?

When isolation, exception, denial

Are ever present?

Maintain the facade of togetherness

Don't bring it up.

Don't say a word.

Some hope

to build a tool strong enough

to cut through springs.

Others try to pick the lock.

Kick down the door.

But it’s useless.

It cannot be opened.

Not through strength,

Pride,

Or power.

Some will forever have tunnel vision.

They cannot look around.

Doomed to never find the secret:

It’s not a key at all.

Beside the scratches,

Stains,

And chips in wood

From attempts of brute

There's something on the wall:

A lightswitch.

Flicked off,

Pieces of the whole

Gradually pulled from the darkness.

A piece with thoughts, feelings, a name–

But this is just a piece.

Choose to trun it on,

and the ego disappears.

Touch.

Sight.

Emotion.

Memory.

Thought.

You.

Gone.

A choice few can stand to ponder.

To stop claiming ownership

over this soul fragment.

To release the hostage.

To return this small piece of soul

To the rightful owner;

The collective.

To end the search.

Finally;

Relief.

Skin to skin will never substitute,

Deep conversations or psychedelics

Can't quite scratch the itch.

The yearning to return to the whole,

To live in harmony.

It lives deep within each person.

The realization;

We are just one piece.

Then, we understand

This need

To rejoin.

To go home.

We understand.

To turn on the light

Is not to kill the soul,

But the ego

That holds it back.