It's dark,
Shaun Morgan is bellowing into my ears that he's reliving the same experiences over and over,
That nothing's forever.

The flick of a bic,
The taste of tobacco and ash,
Filling my lungs and giving my brain a buzz,
And in this sleepless night I'm inclined to agree with him,
Nothing lasts forever,
So what are you waiting for?

Eddie Vedder's voice is raised barely above a whisper,
He's saying his goodbyes to society,
Wishing for them the best,
But saying ultimately he didn't belong with them.

I felt like that once,
When I was embarking as a fresh faced kid,
To fulfill his dream of serving his country,
As an infantryman,
And when I arrived and as I was trained,
It felt like I was finally in my element,
With people who thought like me,
Our Drill Sergeants were the perfect example of what we could be if we applied ourselves,
Our First Sergeant; an example of what we could do if we pushed ourselves past what we were traditionally taught wasn't possible,
Our commander was the kind of individual that you whisper about,
A Captain with a very inked out past,
An old man playing a game where men tended to die young.
Walking within the vicinity of such individuals was akin of walking amongst giants.
We as recruits all started out without much confidence,
What little we did have,
Was false confidence.
These men taught us what it meant to square up and get nose to nose with a whole load of nasty with a **** eating grin on your face.
We were immortal.

I sit here alone years later,
About to start the next chapter in my life,
When it dawned on me.
We knew each other when we were immortal,
We're not immortal anymore.

Looking out from my summit,
Out below on the mountain of my mind,
The words of Getty Lee and his friends,
Sprouting from nowhere,
Telling me that the human being is like a planet,
And that planet is divided into hemispheres,
But one cannot exist without the other.
Intellect was one such hemisphere,
In another hemisphere was creativity,
Another was experiences,

And the smallest one was one I had been trying to ignore,
It was withered, abandoned, uncomfortable, alone,
It was the hemisphere of the bad ****,
Memories of traumas,
New and old.

But now I knew without those I would be a completely different man than I am now today,
What's a little pain in the long run?

This evening I was listening,
To the ebb and flow,
Maynard James Keenan was telling me a tale,
One of struggle and heartbreak,
The passing of a person he loved,
After 27 years in tribulation,
That she would finally be free.

It reminds me of when I was a child ,
When a person very close to me died,
Cancer ravaged their body,
A brilliant mind imprisoned in a failing vessel.
He was smarter than any of us,
And because he knew what the endgame would be,
That there would be no last minute solution,
No magic cure,
Because he knew that he was calm.

The way he carried himself,
Knowing that terrible truth,
Was nothing short of legendary,
Every stride with purpose,
An in-extinguishable fire in his eyes.
And in the end he greeted the end that we all must eventually face like a cool summer breeze,
Knowing that he would no longer feel the pain,
That of his body turning on itself.

He was better than us all,
Someone we should all aspire to be,
We're glad he has peace,
That he was finally called home.

I sit here,
Nearly at the end of my wit's,
Don McLean is chattering on about how the quartet practiced in the park,
The sauce is 35 minutes from being complete,
A journey that started 5 hours and 25 minutes ago.
All because I wanted to try a recipe,
But I'd be lying if my taste buds didn't enjoy it.
Cooking is exhausting

Actually got some sleep,
Surprise surprise to all,
The thunderstorm raged throughout the night,
The clap accompanying the flash so loud it would awake others,
But it I find relaxing,

I awoke to it being dark outside,
Which I found odd, considering when I awoke dawn had passed an hour ago.
The clouds so dark that it would cancel the sunlight.

When I was a child my parents took our family to Florida,
To see for the first time ocean and sand.
One day it was to storm in the afternoon,
The front coming in from the gulf,
So right after lunch we went to the beach,
To watch the storm come in.

Clouds of ashen gray and inky black,
Towering miles high,
All you could see was this wall of nature's wrath, stretching as far as you could see north and south.

I had been awestruck by the power of the world's forces,
Of the way the proverbial slate could be wiped clean,
But for now I'll just sit here and smoke,
Watching the early morning rain.

It's 9:38 P.M.
It's going to be another night for the profound,
I'm in that same darkened room,
Same kitchen light,
Cigarette smoke not quite filling the room yet.
But it shall soon, because I can already tell it's going to be one of those nights.

The sandman apparently forgot to visit, for my eyes are still fresh and new.
Getty Lee is jumping from the speakers,
The anthem is long and blue.
He's telling me about the protagonist of the story,
He had just discovered a relic of the past,
It's potential for destruction could not be more true.
Of how he takes his own life,
To hide away the weapon he had stumbled upon,
To ensure its location could never be pried from his mind.

I think of old buddies from the Army,
The shenanigans we'd get into,
Of times both bad and good.
It's when I do this that I really smoke cigarettes,
Or use chew, that was a bad habit from the Army, but I'm quitting that.

Neil Peart is thundering out a solo that imprints onto the inside of my skull.
I let the waves of sound wash over me.