I had a soul, once, like a live animal.
It is dead now,  hunted and gunned down
by enthusiastic hunters and self-infliction and wine that drowned
and bled it to death, skinned and hung,
with bulging eyes glazed like glass,
leaving only sun-bleached bones and foul odor.
I had a soul, once, that flew like a bird,
and spread its wings at your voice
and the call of God, who has grown silent,
whose conversations once held in trust in dark places fall on ears deaf to thoughts and prayer and hope.
It was beautiful, once,
beautiful enough to be part of this beautiful world.
It has withered, now, like a plucked flower or an old man,
back bent, senile, ignorant, and
too broken to be a semblance or remembrance of its once former glory,
dead.