Page 315

Rise and decline collapse into one stubborn motion, where refusing to quit makes them indistinguishable.

The fragment works because it is so stripped down: rise and fall are not opposites but paired conditions of persistence. "It is your" leaves ownership raw and unfinished, as if responsibility cannot even be grammatically completed. The overtyped "That," turns not quitting into the hinge that fuses glory and collapse into the same line.

Six-line aphorism: 'Your ascendance / Your decline / It is your / Not quitting / makes them / the same.' Refusal to quit as the equalizer of rise and fall.