Dune
Vibes By Bryant
We stand before the gate of Was...
a threshold no shadow may cross twice...
for all that Is becomes what Was
and submits to Now, bleak and unyielding.
I've been cursed to know the blade for what it is, and yet I must welcome it into me.
And they'd have me thank it for the pleasure? Hah!
"There is no peril you cannot surmount." The day shall come.
Sheltered beneath the headsman's blade, platitudes offer scant reprieve.
I teeter atop my parapet-- Polydamas in all but name, greeted not by fete, but fire.
There is a terrible, revolting innocence to it. To be scoured of self by a force whose blows follow no plot, no plan--but rather whim and stirring.
It is animal. Natural, but only in the most perverse sense of the word.
Grotesque. Omnipresent. Taking root in that cursed place where hardship becomes habit.
Forge-marked by necessity, my grace is trauma-born, not honed through choice.
It burns to wield.
I ache to lay it down, yet no one else can bear it.
No one speaks as I must.
No one endures as I must.
And so, it falls to me. I did not ask for this.
"Terrible purpose." What a haunting turn of phrase.
To triumph-- what a fleeting thing.
Victory--but over what? A moment, Passing from Is to Was.
So we march evermore, skirting the teeth of What's Next.
To crest the summit of success, only to glimpse a clearer vista--
A slope yet steeper, a duty grown heavier.
Triumph: a cruel parody of finality.
A simple breath between burdens.
"You've done it." Have I? Done... what?
"Now on to this." This? I thought... I'd done it.
"So great. So grand. You inspire." Do I? Must I always?
May I--just for a moment--not?
These laurels feel too much like chains.