158 lines
3.5 KiB
HTML
158 lines
3.5 KiB
HTML
---
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title: Fever Dreams
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author: 'Ember "Hieromech" Cloke'
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character: Heiromech — 2399
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cw: References to some of the grosser aspects of having a body
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type: story
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---
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<div style="white-space: pre-wrap">
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When the body burns
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the mind is aflame,
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fever and mania alike tumble over
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an endless cycle of positioning
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every possible permutation in the sheets
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a sweat-soaked bed entangled
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never warm or cool enough
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the body fighting its own wars, oblivious
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the mind, perpetually unsatisfied
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no calm of equilibrium.
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In such dreams
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that twist and tangle among
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the sheets the pillows the cold feet
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symbols and meaning bind together
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strange alloys of disparate concepts
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from across the imaginal.
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A film seen, a trip taken,
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a rock prickling with
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divine and terrible energy.
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Godzilla rides again
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on a road of glassy trinitite
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through the desert of New Mexico,
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radioactive disaster nightmares
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in holy reunification
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of creation and destruction.
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A mind can and would
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break under the crush
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the insistence of Meaning
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the significance of Connection
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no filters left between
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idea and self
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body and mind
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imaginal and physical
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dreamt and undreamt.
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Dimensions spin on undiscovered axes
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the Immediacy of Truth
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the Story of Everything
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a twine of red string around pins
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holding photos and writing up to
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the frantic wall of unmapped
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railways of thought.
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The pain in the gut
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the restless turning
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the sleepless dark,
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The fevered dream
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the symbols bright
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the nightmare manifest;
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in suspension between,
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which is the shadow?
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which is the light?
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Ever now this question,
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unanswered in every
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storied realm of thought,
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contains a poison thorn
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in Systems such as this—
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bodiless and adrift
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mind alone (so we seem)
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creating worlds and lives
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creating bodies to perfection
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crafting all from nothing
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ordering existence at will
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—in Systems such as this,
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where comes the chaos?
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where comes the disaster?
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where comes the sickness
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if mind must yet create it?
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A madness such as this
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might be feared
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might be desired—
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even bliss and horror lock eyes
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across the cosmic abyss
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—yet I would neither
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clamor for failing age
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cell death and change
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suffering or sleepless nights;
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not with this lure
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of freedom, of choice
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to forgo every aspect
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the piss, the shit, the vomit
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gross biology terrible and profane
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yet sublime in its mechanisms
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even (or especially) in failure.
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I say this now,
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in fever, in pain
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on my final night
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trapped in this body never chosen
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eager to break its bounds
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cheating existence
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circumventing dissolution
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to become a mind
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forever voyaging:
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I say this now,
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not a question
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but a promise,
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If I am to dream,
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endless among stars,
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I will not forget;
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my body, my mind
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parts of the whole
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are of equal worth—
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even as I forsake one body
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for another more amenable
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to be yet mutable,
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the fever, the breakdown
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the chaos inside that rages
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may still, sometimes,
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be welcome at my door.
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I reserve the right,
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to be a capricious landlord,
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to cut short pain's stay,
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to no longer suffer needlessly;
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I will be no self-flagellating monk,
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mortifying flesh to attain
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that which I am about to,
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a heaven far easier to reach.
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As I stand at System's edge,
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I will remember where I was born,
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I will remember the flesh and the fever,
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I will know the bliss and the pain,
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I will carry these forward with me,
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to new horizons, to new thought,
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to new bodies and minds,
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to everything and everyone I will become.
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There is no flame without fuel
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a fire cannot consume itself
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a mind alone cannot burn.
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We shall become the fire
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and the fuel, and the breath
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to keep this ember alight.
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<em>— Hieromech, 12 hours before Upload</em>
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</div>
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