Strategic Dread
A volition spell
You stand atop the mountain’s lip.
Wind peeling your resolve like ragged cloth.
Each peak a promise, each valley a wound.
And in your breast the ghost of failure
beats its dark wings,
pressing cold against your ribs.
Like summer’s apple rotting at the core,
hope, once firm, now softens under thought:
What if the path dissolves in mist?
What if your hands betray the climb,
... your heart a faltering call in the void?
The orchard of your plans bears only ash.
Yet still your feet remember their old dance:
the downshift into muscle memory
the practiced breath, the ancient OODA loop.
Turning slowly,
bearing you forward.
One small step, one small world,
till dread succumbs to the pulse of action.
And dawn comes not as victory,
but as the simple heartbeat
Beneath a sky that trembles
where fear becomes the measure of your strength.
And you rise again,
steady with the climb.