Soul Food

I am from the South, I know what "soul" tastes like. It tastes like chicken, like fried chicken covered in sawmill gravy with collards and cornbread.

I have been to Seoul, I know that Seoul tastes like... barbeque, or like barbequed chicken, like Chimaek... fried chicken cooked in beer with a Banchan starter.

I have been young and single, so I know what it is to be willing to cook and eat my shoe's sole. Why not? It might go down easy if cooked in beer at a low heat until tender, like Chimaek. You would not laugh if you had ever been hungry enough.

And I have eaten a soul. I have gnawed her up and gobbled her down. She went down rough, and chewy, unwillingly, like under-cooked squid. The more of her soul I chewed, the larger it became, like tar in my mouth, her soul being thick, and gristly, but I swallowed it up anyways before washing it down with an ice cold beer, as any another man would do. I recall that she sat heavy on my stomach. I recall sitting at the bar a good long while after, hoping the beers would settle the acids in, hoping upon hope that I could drink her down and hold her there... but no. Like any other woman, she would not go quietly. Like any other woman, she left me unsettled. She pitched a fit, and threw herself up in my face. Like any other woman, her heart wanted one thing and her soul another. Like any other woman, she must have the last word, if only to satisfy her inedible soul.