Empire of the Primrose poem The city fell in a single night. Holding it would take longer. So the painters were summoned, and the saints on the walls were given his family's eyes. A bloodline was found for him, older than the walls, older than the kings who raised them. Now even the earth must forget it ever belonged to anyone else. The Empire of the Primrose - Station 1 Do you have recurring dreams? Travel Sketches by metamodernist artist JJFBbennett The cycle always resets at dusk, like waking inside the cold architecture of an unyielding, repetitive dream. I walk the wet, cobbled veins of an ancient European city, passing beneath stone arches hung with heavy, lifeless flags, heraldry drained of colour, damp cloth clinging to wooden poles like dead skin. There is no breath of wind, only the low, humming pressure of an era turning in its sleep. I reach into an iron sconce and tear loose a torch of roaring, ragged fire. The flame casts jittering amber shad...
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Navigating Inner Galaxies
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Navigating Inner Galaxies
The anomaly entrypoint
As I approach the swirling anomaly, a feeling of dread begins to settle in my stomach, cold and heavy like a lead weight. The ship trembles slightly, a subtle vibration that hums through the deck plates and up into the soles of my boots. I can see the glowing colours reflecting off the cockpit’s interior – shifting hues of cerulean, violet, and emerald, each one pulsing with an unnerving, otherworldly light. It’s mesmerising and terrifying all at once, a cosmic dance of light and shadow that draws me in, an intoxicating invitation to step beyond the confines of reality and into the unknown.
The anomaly is incomprehensible
Every sensor on the console blinks a warning, a cacophony of alarms that I've long since learned to ignore. My fingers, steady despite the growing unease, hover over the controls, ready to initiate evasive maneuvers if the anomaly shows any signs of aggression. I grip the console tighter, the cool metal grounding me in this moment, a tangible anchor in the face of the ethereal display before me. Yet, I can’t shake off the sense of impending chaos, the premonition of a profound shift in my existence. It feels as though I am on the precipice of something vast and incomprehensible, a journey into the heart of the universe’s most guarded secrets.
The anomaly of my anxiety
The voices inside my head grow louder, a relentless tempest of clashing thoughts swirling and churning like the malevolent anomaly raging outside the ship. Are they true reflections of my deepest fears, the anxieties that gnaw at the edges of my sanity? Or are they merely echoes of my own suppressed desires, twisted and distorted by the immense pressure of our predicament? I can’t tell anymore; the lines have blurred, the distinctions have vanished. They’re all jumbled together, a deafening cacophony of uncertainty that threatens to shatter my fragile composure.
The anomaly engulfs me
I take a deep, shuddering breath. My desperate push against the rising tide of panic. My lungs burn, my chest tightens, but my internal din intensifies. A surge of fire shoots through my veins, every muscle coiling, screaming to lash out, to push forward. Then, an undertow of ice. A violent recoil. The desperate, animal urge to shrink, to break away, to simply not be here. My gaze turns inward, exhausted by the relentless war of impulses. A terrible clarity dawns: the real danger isn't the storm outside. Every moment lost in this internal maelstrom is a moment lost to survival. My mind, caught between the lunge and the retreat, is tearing me apart.
The anomaly hears me
“What are you feeling?” I hear a voice that isn't mine. My internal monologue, usually a swirling current of unarticulated thoughts, morphs into an external inquiry, peeling back the layers of my consciousness. It’s a question laced with desperation, echoing the weight of my existential grip, a plea for clarity in the swirling fog of my mind. My mind races, grappling with the disquieting notion that the chaos outside, the incessant dark noise, the relentless march of time, the myriad demands of existence, mirrors, with terrifying precision, the tempest roiling within. A maelstrom of anxieties, unspoken fears, and simmering frustrations threatens to capsize the fragile vessel of my composure. Each breath feels shallow, a desperate attempt to draw air into lungs constricted by an invisible vise. The world inside seems to implode with veracity, its cacophony amplifying the clamour of my own thoughts, leaving me adrift in a sea of overwhelming emotion.
The anomaly is strangely familiar
“This is just a distraction,” I try to tell myself. Fragments of identity, fractured and incomplete, swirl within the luminous chaos: who I was, who I am, who I desperately yearn to be. All these disparate pieces, moments of failure, sparks of joy, fragments of identity, are swirling, merging with the dazzling, terrifying expanse outside. I am drawn deeper into the uncertainty, pulled by an invisible tether towards the radiant abyss. I teeter on the edge, my balance precarious, between the known and the utterly unfathomable. This precipice feels both frightening, a dizzying drop into the unknown, and strangely familiar, as if I’ve stood here before, perhaps in a dream, or in a forgotten life. A faint, almost imperceptible hum vibrates through my bones, a siren song promising both revelation and oblivion. The air around me crackles with an unseen energy, and I feel a profound shift, as if the very fabric of reality is stretching, thinning, preparing to tear.
The Anomaly is in the depths of my psyche
“Maybe the real anomaly isn’t out there,” I whisper to myself, the words barely audible above the frantic beat of my own heart. The concept feels slippery, haunting, like a half-remembered dream that refuses to fully surface. My gaze drifts to the swirling patterns on the condensation-streaked window, mirroring the maelstrom within my mind. A part of me, the logical, scientific part, struggles to reconcile this burgeoning intuition with everything I've ever known, every axiom I’ve ever held dear. Yet, I can’t deny the visceral, almost magnetic pull of the unknown; it’s an intoxicatingly alluring force, beckoning me to explore the unfathomable depths of my own psyche, to venture into territories no map can chart.
The air in this sphere feels charged, thick with unrecognisable questions. The fear of losing myself, of dissolving into something unrecognisable, intertwines with a profound and almost desperate desire for transformation. What if I step into it, this swirling vortex of self-discovery? What if it consumes me, leaving behind only an echo of who I once was? A shiver traces a path down my spine, a frisson of both terror and exhilaration. Is this madness, or a revelation?
The Anomaly is suffocating and liberating
I can't escape the sense that this struggle isn't just mine, but a shared human experience, reflected in our collective consciousness. I'm not alone in this, and yet, this grip feels isolating. The outside world fades, leaving only this moment, a confrontation with my own shadows. In this space, I realise my mind is its own anomaly, a labyrinth of fears and hopes, grips and releases, an exploration that feels both suffocating and liberating.
Something else was forming within me, a shimmering, indistinct form, a powerful, almost terrifying presence that seemed to pulse with an ancient light. It felt like a beautiful angel, yes, but not one of comfort. This was an angel of confrontation, its wings beating silently within the confines of my skull, stirring up a storm of everything I’d carefully suppressed. My mind, usually a fortress of nothingness, had become a battleground, a bewildering labyrinth where every thought led to another unsettling truth about myself.
The Anomaly is all about acceptance
What I seek is not resolution but acceptance. The ceaseless struggle against the inner turmoil, the yearning for a pristine calm that always seems just out of reach—it’s an exhausting pursuit. Instead, I find myself drawn to the radical act of breathing into the chaos, of allowing the dissonance to exist without immediate judgment or forceful dismissal. To acknowledge my fears, not as obstacles to be overcome, but as intrinsic threads woven into the fabric of my journey. Each tremor of anxiety, each whisper of doubt, becomes a part of the landscape I traverse.
“I won’t let it define me,” I murmur, the words a gentle but firm mantra rising amidst the disarray of thoughts and emotions. It’s a vow not to erase the shadow, but to ensure it doesn’t eclipse the light. This internal declaration isn't about denial, but about reclaiming agency in the face of what feels overwhelming.
And as I stare into the swirling lights, those amorphous, unsettling patterns that once symbolised only confusion and threat, the anomaly becomes a mirror. It’s a reflection not of external disarray, but of my own complexities, my own internal maelstroms and quiet eddies. In its shifting depths, I begin to discern the intricate dance of my own psyche, the paradoxes and contradictions that make me whole. It is in this profound recognition that the true journey unfolds—a journey that lies not in escaping the grip of these inner forces, but in understanding the depths of my existence, in embracing all that I am, fear and all.
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