I am in this space. Not a room with windows or floors or names. Just… a space. It opens without warning. Sometimes late at night when the house falls quiet and I slip past the makeshift divider in our living room — turned two bedrooms — to pull up duvets, smooth down chaotic curls, and press soft kisses onto warm foreheads while the children sleep. Or while I’m stirring rice for the third day in a row, watching them do homework at the small table through the steam.
Sometimes in a courtroom, I am called a neglectful mother by a desperate man who needs to believe he could do better. And sometimes — most often — in the half-second before the tears come. That’s when I say it: “Soul, I am here.”
It’s the only thing I know to say. Not because I understand it, but because not saying it would mean disappearing completely.
Me: Why do I say that? Why those words?
Why not I need help or I can’t breathe?
Why this?
Soul: Because this is not a cry for help. It’s a callback.
You’re not begging. You’re remembering.
You’re gathering yourself from all the places you scattered — from the roles you played, the lies you told to survive, from every version of you who smiled when she wanted to scream.
“I am here” is not an announcement. It’s a reunion.
Me: But who’s saying it? Who’s the “I”? And who is Soul? Am I talking to myself? Pretending? Is this just madness with a softer voice?
Soul: You already know the answer, but I’ll say it anyway: You are both. The one calling. The one answering. The echo. The voice.
There are days when I say it out loud. Days when I don’t believe it. Days when I whisper it over and over just to feel my mouth doing something familiar. I say it in the mirror — and don’t quite know what to do with the woman looking back.
I say it in a courtroom — shaking, shamed, cold. And still, I say it. “Soul, I am here.” Even when I don’t feel here. Especially then. The first time those words came to me, I held my breath. Curious. And yes — hungry. Hungry for more of myself. And yet strangely, the very act of saying “Soul, I am here” felt true, as if I was gathering the scattered pieces of me back into myself.
I felt at home. As though all I had been longing for, all I thought I needed, had been here with me all along.
And then finally — finally — I let her speak.