"The main thing, when a sword cuts into one's soul, is to keep a calm gaze, lose no blood, accept the coldness of the sword with the coldness of a stone. By means of the stab, after the stab, become invulnerable."--Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks
Face history like this. The mother who loves me conditionally, the father whose past I understand only in his absence, the brother and son who disowned us all. The mistakes I've made, the latest that seems to compound all its predecessors. What was spurned and lost. Still, I must stare at it, and know it intimately. For that song of steel is mine more than anything in the world. More than love, even.
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