Eris threw a golden apple
inscribed with the words
‘to the ugliest’
onto the floor
of the New York stock exchange
police have sealed off the building
to contain the damage
but they haven’t shut off the cameras
so we can watch money eat itself
(2024)
wet
worn
hot
thickly
clinging
substrate
oozing
wealth
staining
hands
because
exploiting
someone
else’s
death
always
comes
at
a
cost
(2023)
I heard they have a plan in America
to replace all the human beings
with self-driving cars with neflix subscriptions
in a landscape of drive-thrus stretching from
sea to sea
the most efficient system ever
to eat their own people alive
“thank god for the river or those people from down south would overrun us”
she said, watching them pull three point turns
in the parking lot of homeland security
that night after we’d blown the rainbow bridge
cruelty has purpose
the violence just is
a live grenade in a hospital lobby
a ship on fire
all hands on deck
“I don’t understand why you’re so unhappy”
he said when I showed him where the swimming pool tiles had cut my face
like I was meant to thank him
that was the day we lost Bruce
what did you expect
a guy like him
getting lost in his own neighbourhood
though all the houses do kind of look the same
a wall of tanks
shedding sparks on the way to put out a fire that isn’t burning
(2023)
come! thou stalwart edge of dawn
and break this calcified intrigue
which day denies
a sightless sigh into the sweating sheets
break, o break the sky
creator
all things you made
unmake
encase me so that I may break as well
dissolve
dissolve
dissolve
dissolve
(2023)
this is the magic of the fear-not ritual
this is why ritual is
so that when you place your hand in the box and
the pain is indescribable
when your fear says: pull away, save yourself
questioning this fear, you remember everyone before who passed this test
generation upon generation who did not pull away
who asked this question: why?
remember this like your own name: pain and fear are two separate things
distinct, divisible, neither inevitable
we mistake them for each other
the experience of one produces the other
but they are separate things
when, from pain, you experience fear
ask it: why?
some pain simply happens
or maybe all things
happen simply
what we call fear is a reflex
the animal retreat
hate is the choice to not question your fear
(July 2022)
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." -Frank Herbert
The Bene Gesserit litany against fear is one of the strongest examples of a clever, spiritual-sounding concept from a piece of fiction being turned into a near-religious text. It sounds magnificent, and it echoes many sentiments of Western thought. Perhaps it’s less meaningful to people whose religious cultures make death part of an infinitely iterating cycle and not the end point of a linear process (see: apocalypse, Christian obsession with.)
But the litany, along with the existence of the Bene Gesserit and the rest of the Dune universe, is a fictional proposition. Frank Herbert wrote fiction. He made it all up. That it sounds like a real religion is simply because he did a good job of it. By way of comparison, consider The Force, which is essential Qi in a British accent. Good old Ether if you like, if it was real and semi-sentient. Lucas didn’t invent that out of thin air (*laughs in alchemist*) but patched it together from established texts. He got away with it because his audience of pre-adolescent North Americans had by and large never heard of Taoism.
We’re meant to overcome our fears, but I have a very different attitude these days. I don’t need to ‘conquer’ my fears before doing The Big Things. I’ve tried and tried to make myself fearless before doing something, and it’s a waste of time. Go ahead and have the fear, but do the thing anyway. Doing The Thing is maybe the only way to get rid of the fear.
As Space Mom said, “stay afraid, but do it anyway.” If anyone was ever Strong with the Force, it was Carrie Fisher.
So grab your maker hooks and let’s ride this sandbitch into tomorrow. Enjoy this you-failed-witch-school-but-yay-now-you-don’t-have-to-fuck-a-Harkonnen litany against giving a shit about being afraid.
And if anyone mentions that these are two different sci-fi franchises, I will literally scream.
I can’t do shit about the fear It can kill me if I let it, but I don’t think it will Besides, there is no such thing as total obliteration I will face my fear I will let it walk along with me It will not keep me from taking another step The fear will probably never go away. Regardless, I remain
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