Where is my soul?

I miss when connecting linguistically was actually considered cool and not cringe.

As I read just yesterday in a book: the descent into hell begins with language. The ascent to heaven shouldn't be much different. 

It seems we're in times of linguistic minimalism, a non-speaking or very minimal speaking/writing practice as a way to demonstrate the common language already speaks for you (as a way of saying, works for you).

But is it? Are you sure?

I don't know what I'm saying. I myself have drastically distanced from any form of self-expression that is not given, such as calculated photo dumps, generic posing methods for fitting into a certain lexicon.

A lexicon from some Other I don't even know who.

It's depressing.

Surely the language doesn't work for me by itself, I must put myself into it. I must do the bloody work as my body... retreats or places itself in a place of manifest? I don't know.

The presence of the body and what it means seems more and more significant to me. Recognizing photography as a machine of phantoms. Recognizing the world itself as haunted.

I'm haunted. Remember hearing, as a kid, about natives that believed having your photo taken imprisons your soul? I knew I've had several photos of me taken already.

Naked, as a baby, learning to use the potty. With a rabbit face drawn on mine. Kissing my mother. Kissing my father. Crying. Being loved so much. Oh, so much.

I couldn't believe the possibility of my soul not being here anymore.

But maybe that profecy was just a matter of timing.

A line from Louise Glück drumming in my head for about a year now: If your soul died, whose life are you living, and when did you become that person?

Where is my true person burried? I have the feeling it's still alive.