Niccolò to Il Magnifico

It requires more courage than this. These battles are not evaded but avoided and fought still later at still greater cost. I cannot raise my eyes to count the loss on either path. The dark swells up before me bearing pictures of the self turning and twisting in the tangled lines of battles long unfought of choices needing to be made. The past must be unbraided with a knife; the strife returned to; all that’s built exploded, all we have, unwrought.