Aerobic Trypanophobic

What remains

when no jagged stone is left unturned,

no chilling depth un-plunged,

no treacherous bridge is left unburned,

no creeping weakness unexpunged?

When the ice has cut deep

with every step toward the blizzard's eye

and frozen flesh falters

in its fiery will to struggle and defy.

A scene is painted on the snow

in scarlet, steaming, clear.

Depicts the fix you long to know,

the antidote to fear.

Or,

perhaps, not that,

for "cure," is sure

a far too kindly word.

As if, with a simple pinch and squeeze,

the syringe, your hero, relieves you.

No, friend, for crooked medicines as these,

while you binge, your power leaves you.

At the fringes of your clouded mind,

you perceive, in frantic stenography,

the record, grim, typed to the brim,

of brutal homeopathy.

Your disease was hesitation,

a deadly, slow affliction.

In accordance with your ills,

your will sought options lacking friction.

But "easy," is fiction, there's no free lunch,

and you'll receive that for which you pay.

Shun unearned benedictions when it's time to crunch,

for it's not achievement what lies that way.

That soothing saint, he whispers warmth.

Behind his back, he hides atrocity.

He coaxes blokes and bitches

toward the comfort of mediocrity.

While they sleep, he gently sunders their veins,

their lifeblood drains away,

down to the sump, his fetid hoard

of stagnation and decay,

a rotting mass, it stinks like ass,

of clotted dreams unspent.

But should your dread one day turn up dead,

its end was not heaven-sent.

Exertion all your own

is what will free your mind from paralysis.

No fair-weather-expert will come along

to perform that psychic dialysis.

An agonizing journey is the fire which distills,

removing wanton sloth from otherwise healthy wills.

Would you care to know what's left

once your spirit has paid its dues?

When you think you've given all you can,

what then remains is you.