Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

Dissonance –

Dissonance is created by facts that make each other impossible. They simply can’t both be true.
Most people are made so uncomfortable by dissonance they pretend it doesn’t exist. But dissonance is the line that artists – and warriors – learn to walk.
When I was little my first dissonant discovery was that highly desired things seemed to melt in my arms – I wanted getting them, but I didn’t want having them. The next dissonance was people saying they loved you but fleeing. I decided this dissonance was connected to the first; people like the idea of something much more than they like its reality. This was my first introduction to the importance of ideas.
My warrior self began to emerge when I observed that people made elaborate rationales to retroactively justify their behavior and they wanted me to sign on to these. I thought it was easier to just admit that emotional states are fleeting – the pursuit of knowledge shows us that knowledge itself is amorphous, but discovered that my ideas were unpopular to say the least. In the meantime I wanted to strengthen my shell and explore ecstatic states. Looking at the past and trying to figure out what actually happened – turns out to be the most ecstatic state of all.

Bird of Paradise

I have seen the

Souls caved in-

Flashing hyaline –

Wings upflung

Tesserae shagreen;

A flare-tailed phoenix

Shuddering-

Rip the orchid-breasted

Dream

Blood & lung –

Incinerating

Coils of lies

Where love & truth –

Diamorphate –

Polychromize