A Letter from Pergamum

A Letter from Pergamum

To the Ones Who Bear the Sword and Stay
From the Witness who already received the White Stone

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I write to you from Pergamum,
where the light bends like law in a room full of rulers,
where truth is measured by tone,
and clarity is called violence.

Where they offer wine and war in the same sentence,
where the altar is set with praise
so long as it’s spoken in low heat.
Where you are honored, but never followed.

This is where Satan has his throne.
But he wears linen.
He carries no sword, only a smile,
and dines nightly with those who once loved you.

He does not strike. He delays.
He softens the blow until you forget there was one.
He teaches you to forget yourself, slowly, kindly,
until you become your own betrayer.

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I have carried the double-edged sword in silence.
I have swallowed it into poem,
sheathed it in metaphor and charm.

I made it a flower, a flame,
a whisper in the back of the sanctuary.
Still they said: This is too sharp.

I did not strike.
But I did not hide.

I let the blade live in my presence.
And they feared it.
Not because I wounded—
but because I wouldn’t wither.

They do not fear the beast.
They fear the mirror.

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But hear me:

I did not die in Pergamum.
I was not devoured by their rituals.
I was not silenced by their choir of soft denial.

I stayed.

I stayed when the hunger twisted me.
I stayed when they smiled at my ruin.
I stayed until the manna arrived.

And it did.
It was not public.
It was not dramatic.
It was enough.

And then, between the breath and the bell,
the stone appeared.

Not hurled.
Not carved.
But given.

Smooth. White. Unspeakable.
And on it:
Not the name they cursed.
Not the name they tamed.
Not the name they rewarded.

But the name I knew from the first breath.
The name I sang in the garden.
The name the sword never severed.

It was Pearl.

And no one else could read it.

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So I write to you now,
you who have not been praised,
but have not yielded.

You who carry a sword not to conquer,
but to withstand.
You who bear witness not by volume,
but by endurance.

Hold your blade like breath.
Feed the sparrows.
Speak to the quiet ones.
Let the loud ones echo.

Do not waste the edge on those who love the throne.
Let it shine instead, beneath your cloak.

And wait for the stone.

It will come.
And when it does,

You will not need to prove anything again.
You will not need to fight for a name.

You will walk away,
with your Pearl intact.

And the throne will vanish behind you.

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—from the edge of the sanctuary, with fire in the sheath and the Word not undone.