I gave birth to a nine-pound baby, you asshole. I think I can handle it.

The inky black sky was overcast with the light of a flare fired in the air.

A hooded figure appeared on the edge of the bunker with his weapon

She lifted her weapon to him, but was shot by one of her own.

Her stomach was on fire,

The bullet had ripped through the skin and the intestine.

The pain was burning, searing through the body and the mind

She watched aghast her own organs and the blood intertwine.

The others around her were unsure of their reactions to the calamity

Some horrified; some amazed at her sagacity.

The staccato gunfire was incessant all around

And the unmistakable sound and stench of enmity did abound.

But her clasp on the weapon was firm and her focus deadly

Her eyes had the glint of steel and her resolve became her physical self

All torn asunder and bloodied, but with the thread

Authority and righteousness strung together virtuously.

“I gave birth to a nine-pound baby, you asshole. I think I can handle it.”

The pain and the angst in those words, for once, became the epitome

Of what a woman can take and still not be undone.