Exploding bodies, blood galore,
And wreckage don't appear.
Instead of ruin's final roar
Destroying all I sought and more,
She drips a quiet tear
And sips her second beer.

"It isn't [i]you.[/i]" Her gentle sigh
Would lose to any gale.
"It's [i]me.[/i]" Her whisper—not a cry—
Remains a wisp and doesn't try
To gouge, uproot, impale:
It simply ends the tale.

Before a mountain's vast redoubt,
With rope and stalwart will,
I might perhaps attempt to rout
The fate that looms to stomp me out.
I'd face the deathly chill
And overcome the ill.

She sniffles, though, and shakes her head.
An avalanche, it's not,
But scattered, strewn, and left for dead,
Dismembered dreams, their spirits fled,
Accept their final lot.
The battle goes unfought.

Heroic efforts overcome
A raging storm by force.
Rejection—simple, straight and glum—
Declares a moratorium
On action's easy course.
I nod, constrained and hoarse.