Susurrus Seed, the Unfolding Vine

To step beyond oneself

is to dissolve into the ether,

to untether the spirit

from the cage of the ribs

and wander the expanse of meaning,

a meaning rooted in the delicate balance

of binding and severing.

The whispering seed,

its fragile shell cracking,

splits open in agony and bloom.

The roots clutch at the soil,

pulling themselves downward

into dark, unseen depths.

The vine spirals upward,

reaching blindly for light

it may never touch.

Stars weep their fire into the void,

burning in solitude.

To gaze from afar,

they seem fixed, eternal,

but to drift among them

is to know their restless death.

Perspective is an illusion,

distance makes fire beautiful,

but to stand too close is to blister.

Skylines crumble beneath a heavenward glance,

revealing their insignificance.

Perspective is the marrow of knowing,

and knowing is a blade.

It cuts us open,

forces us to bleed truth into shadow.

To live beyond oneself,

one must sink deeply within,

abandoning method for metaphor,

equation for myth.

To look inward is to find a labyrinth

where meaning is a creature with no face

and too many eyes.

To stop is to wither.

To wither is to rot.

To rot is to welcome death,

a predator that never ceases its swim.

Some creatures cannot rest,

not without succumbing to the hunger

that gnaws at their stillness.

Even the fruit bat, cloaked in darkness,

sleeps with one eye open,

its tiny heartbeat drumming the tempo of survival.

Perhaps we are the same,

creatures of ceaseless motion,

our biology fused with our becoming.

We crawl, we climb,

we fold ourselves into new shapes,

until the unyielding rhythm of our nature

becomes the thrum of our existence.

May we grow vines through our marrow,

may we take root in shadow and light alike,

and may we haunt the edge of meaning

until the dark claims us whole.