The Double Bind (Scylla & Charybdis)

Lyrics

[Intro]

Oh, my faithful helm, turned in your grip of olive wood, smoothed by a thousand desperate hands.
In the Strait of Messina, twilight, 1200 BCE, we face them again.

[Verse 1]
Scylla on the left, her six heads snapping from the cliff, that jagged rock near Scilla town.
You remember, don't you? Homer wrote it in Book XII, the choice Odysseus made.
Charybdis on the right, swallowing the sea three times a day, regurgitating foam and wreck.
I hold you tight, this bronze-bound wheel, feeling the grain under my palms.

[Chorus]
Double bind, my love, neurons firing in conflict, prefrontal cortex torn.
Like the whirlpool's suck and the monster's bite, no middle way.
You, my helm, you're the only steady thing, guiding through the impossible.
Saltwater stings, blood tang in the air, but we steer on.

[Verse 2]
Think of the sailors, unnamed, lost in 8th century verse, their cries drowned in the roar.
Broken oars floating, splintered cedar from the trireme's side.
I whisper to you, helm, as the wind chills to 10 degrees, dusk shadows lengthening.
Zeus's punishment on the nymph, cycling torment, like synaptic loops in distress.

[Bridge]

What if we choose neither? Float in the gradient, osmotic pull of fate.
But no, the strait demands decision, just as the brain binds us in prediction error.
My dear helm, worn by grips from Sicily to Calabria, you're my anchor in this neural storm.

[Verse 3]
Dried figs in my pouch, barley bread crumbling, rations for the doomed.
The sextant lies useless, bronze glinting in fading light.
Scylla's rocks stained red, Charybdis gurgling like a beast's throat.
I lean close, breath on your wood, intimate as a lover's secret.

[Chorus]
Double bind, my love, neurons firing in conflict, prefrontal cortex torn.
Like the whirlpool's suck and the monster's bite, no middle way.
You, my helm, you're the only steady thing, guiding through the impossible.
Saltwater stings, blood tang in the air, but we steer on.

[Outro]

Through the strait, we emerge, scarred but whole, my helm.
A perfect sigh, released.