Fear, Is a battle.
Fear is a Disease.
My disease.

Fear, puts me in places,
That I know I shouldn't be in.
Like I woke up in a dark attic, not knowing how I got there, or why.

See, it's not...things...I'm afraid of.
It's not people, or pain, or injury, or death.

Fear puts thoughts in you, that are totally and completely out of character, until they begin changing how you define yourself.

I am,
The fearful.
I am,
The untrusting.

Trust and fear come hand in hand, but purvey the opposite effects of one another.
Trust, puts fear to sleep. A silent, peaceful slumber. A place fear would rather be anyway. Trust allows you to see what is hopefully the truth in others.

Ah...you see. "Hopefully." There is that little seed of doubt.

Fear is the abusive sibling of the relationship. Always hanging over trust's shoulder, whispering worst-case scenarios in his ear.
In mine, it takes trust's confidence and gently, throws it into the nearest garbage can.

Trust is powerful.
But fear cuts deep.

When trust, faith, in someone is broken...
Well...we've all been there at some point.
When trust is broken, he half-heartedly stumbles to his bed, and stays there. Not asleep. Just, broken.

At this point fear doesn't have to do a thing.
Anytime you look inside yourself, since trust is gone, the only thing left is fear, just...sitting there.

Normally trust...gets up and brushes himself off to try again, especially with the help of friends.

But, in a few of us...


In a few of us, trust falls asleep, and disappears.
Hope, the half-sibling tries and tries to wake him up, to no avail.
Trust is gone.
Fear just sits there. Doing nothing, but doing everything.

Hope is a stubborn one, and pushes, and pushes, and pushes.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes, it doesn't.

Fear. Trust.
They walk, hand in hand.
Toe, to toe.

I am,
The fearful.
I am,
The untrusting.

Hope, through valiant effort, keeps on trying.
Her energy is not limitless.

At times like these...
Hope, is not enough.

Trust has died.
The only way, to restore the balance,
Is for another's heart to come forth, and share their trust.

It's not fair, asking your trust to keep my fear in check, as well as yours, It just isn't.
At times like these,

I need the trust of someone,
Who is willing to share,
With one, who trusts no one.

<Insert Poem Here>

<Insert Silent Sympathies Here>

<Insert Spiraling Tenancies Here>
   (Wait...No. Not that.)
<Delete Line>

<Insert Self Doubt Here>

<Insert Friends Here>
   [File Not Found]
::Comment:: What about me?

<Insert Apology Here>

<Insert Regret Here>

<Insert Pain Here>

<Insert Poem Here>


<RvL>

Lights out,
Sleep child,
sleep.

You're only dreaming.

     There are no monsters under the bed.

~

They are in my head.
Unimaginary,
wreaking havoc.

Pillage my heart

~

Sleep away your pains,
  or never wake up.

You've been asleep all along.

To my heart I write these words,
Spare me from my sickness,
Unchain me from my shackles.

I walk only because I must,
Not yet for myself.
There are good days,
There are bad.

It's sad to see myself in such a state,
When my efforts reap little reward.

Today, once again, I find myself asking why,
Why?

Who knows.
I do my best to restrain myself from my own fires,
And still they burn,
But not as the flames in your candle, no.
They burn with a searing, slow, and silent heat.

My stomach churns at the thought of this lasting forever.

Reprieve me of my prisonous mind.
I would love to love myself, and yet I try,

And yet I falter.

Why do I hold myself to such perfectious standard?

I bear the standard of the anxious and depressed, meanwhile no one knows how to listen for the silent cries that even I speak unawares.

I tear my own heart asunder, but why?

The silent disease with no cure.
The infection that cannot be understood due to its silence.

So how are we to solve this puzzle?
Where none of the pieces fit?

Solve the riddle unspoken.

~Robert van Lingen

Never let anyone make you think you're anything less than amazing,
   This is how we fought.

Think thoughtfully about why we're here.
  Why we are.

Here.
   Take me by my most scarred hand and I shall guide you with the lessons that burned me,
So you are spared.

Hello.
   Welcome to my heart,
It is a warm place,
  But rather quite small.

I will guide you with my wounds,
  For reason only so you should not receive in kind.

Be brave,
  But be kind,
I will show you,

That a love is not consuming,
  So breathe easy.

I will teach you the love,

   Of the truest kind.

That,

     Of the heart of a friend.

The raindrips are dropping outside for a change,
some way I still feel them draining through my decrepit veins.

Thunderous applause for the storms that wage,
The wars that I've paid for with my strayful ways, day after day.

Come now,
Come play in the swaying waves forming aside my imminent lines,
The ones that play and play on,
Bouncing and rebounding around inside my mind(s).

Tip, typing away,
Fueled by the fires outside this time.
Each of these rampant keys seal away the pains that fray these frail heartstrings.

Filling the gutters with the utterances that speak the futile fightings,
Flying through the air,
With the nimbus lighting my way through the faintest of nighttime scenes,
Hoping these barely discernable dreams are the ones that will see me through the day.

Easing my restless heart with the chaos rains that thunder and pour,
They sway my mind to sleep.

Pray,
that it will all be over soon,
or perhaps,
even today.

Watch the silent fire,
Watch me scorch my battered heart,
Ashes cannot burn.

Begin,
   We see in this moment,

Broken,
   Spoken our ductaped fixes,

The trajectory of the bricks is straight for my heart.

Break apart the arts I've invented in my mind,

Of which you're the inspiration.

Perspiration running down my face,
   As I realize my place in the world.

No space for a broken mind and shrunken heart.

Pull apart the synapses that hold me together,

It's as if,
   Things almost got better...

We all coast to the end of our tracks,
   Via the cracks in our walls.

Who falls through?
   We never know.

It just goes to show,

The most we've ever known,
  is never sleep alone.

~Robert van Lingen

The most painful type of pain,
Is the pain, we never knew would come,
Betray'd by our senses.
The most painful type of pain,
Turns us into trustless husks,
of Who we used to be.

Distraught,
Destroyed,
Dis,
embodied.

My halls,
The walls,
my wicked falls turn'd from stone,
dissolved to nary a diffid tone thrown by ******* bones.

An amorphous form born from the aimless mourning that now has no space to face and call my own.

Telltale swarms of which I myself did warn would come,
Once and again I crumble from what once which I would succumb.

Myself. Dear. Gone.

I am,
afloat in limbo forever struck with what,
I Left only to silence my mind until once again,
I would find the cut.

...
Page 2

My totality revised,
Scratched through like the words unworthy.
Smoothed over the rough draft,
Autobiography progressive,
Nary writing another day's pages.

You,
Are my brother.
You,
Are my sister.

You are my tribe,
My people,
My Family.

To see the day,
Witnessing the ways we hate each other,
Thrusts a knife through my heart, and out the other side.

The weight of the world falls upon us when we see the loss of our brothers, our sisters,
Born of the same blood,
As you, and I.

I am not scared,
I am sad,
I am disappointed to see the ways,
The walls we build that separate us from the other.

There is no other,
Only Us.

You,
Are my brother.
You,
Are my sister.
You are all my family,
And my Blood.

To see the blood spilled for the sake of nothing,
Forsaken are we to each other.

Come together,
You and I.
Come, my sister,
Come, my brother.

We shall stand,
Hand in hand.
until the day we fly.

~Robert van Lingen

When the world falls upon you and more,
   To gaze back,
Eyes glazed over the destruction.

The heart bleeds as if cut a thousand times,
And bleeds some more.

As to the beating tune beneath,
   It rages on.
...and so does the war.

The fight with oneself,
and the carriers of the pains you've now taken for granted...

There's only so much earth to break.

   Spread these ****** bones across the fields of my unvisioning,
Blind wakes close behind...

Warpath, I have taken.
   Shaken, is the thought of finding peace, again...

Until my end.
I will fight.

Plick,
Pluck,

the tiny little strings in my mind.

dancing to a different tune each and every day,
the world plays my songs.

eyes wandering around the room while I play with my thoughts,
like the child I never won't be.

cross-legged and slumped over as the heated droplets dribble down my spine,
and fall from my weary lips,
that which are worn from the words I never got used to saying,
singing the songs of my each and every day,

coalesce the thinkings that have somehow let me dance to where I sit today,
forlorn petals fall from my branches in beautiful pastels, cursed to live in the winding winds.

Aday to each and every day that I sing and prance within my tiny little heart,
washing my pains away.

ill-weighed upon my shoulders,
as yet i dance some more,
beneath the turbid downpours engulfed in shades of red.

i wish't to see the blue,
the green,
the steam, arising from my skin.

narrowly weeping within my little box of horrors i keep by my side,
in remembrance of each and every day i have and will yet shed a tear.

haunted lullabies revel on and on,
each and every day,

i crave the pieces of the peaces i'd once known.
to here,
today,

i shut my eyes,
and into the blackness bursts forth colors i've never seen,
and will never see again.
to see that which i've never seen.
silent shapes shaping away falling through my fields of vision,
and inform themselves to the visions I write today,
so here,

i simply continue,
to plick,
and pluck,
the tiny strings inside my mind,

each,
and every day.

~Robert van Lingen

Just when I thought I was ashore,
My waves crack once more,

Here I stare at the walls above,
Lying, aware of nothing more.

Just when I thought I was home,
Just when I thought I could be alone,

You came,
You've grown,
In, and out of my fleeting realities,

I fly athunder'd by this reckless mind,
I fly, blunder'd into the past I'd thought I'd left behind.
Sleep,

Quiet, I say.
There's nothing left to say but,
Just wait.
There's no need to cry,

I'd merely thought I'd lost my way,
Silently,
I just have to remember,

My yesterdays,
Will never be my tomorrows.

~Robert van Lingen

Peace, my steel-eyed friend,
You are ever present,
Yet eternally elusive.

Devilishly tugging away at my silken heartstrings,
You play,
Tease my fragile soul.

My problem is I fear.

I hold on.

I never know when to give up.

I blindly wave my hands in front of me in hopes that I'll find a hidden door to paradise,

Althewhile I fully expect to never find something that will allow me to stop wandering.

If that wasn't enough,
I drag the locked doors that I find along the way behind me in hopes that,
one day,
they'll magically open.

Stare into me.
Flare up and fly to me.
My ghostly gaze falls into your eyes,
Let these phantom fingers caress your curves,

Our ethereal tangle,
As we pass through reality
Into the hills and valleys on our bodies,

Close your eyes,
And see me with your skin.

Intoxicate me with your sinful quivers,
As I ride on the highways of your sighs.

Come closer,
And I'll show you a differently perfect side of our world.



~Robert van Lingen

In my estranged daze,
I now fall from the floor,
The utter sadness flows in like a summer's rain.

It is okay, poor one,
My child, it will soon be over.
And soon you will grow.

So be kind,
You cannot drown in tears of joy.

~Robert van Lingen

Immaculately organizing every letter of the alphabet in slightly different ways to make what you read today.

My brain is the battery charged with the words I say in different ways,
And until I am depleted,
I am defeated to keep writing the words flowing like a fresh summer's flash flood monsoon,

Hopefully soon I will fall asleep,
So I can put away this curse of a brain that keeps saying things I can't help but see.

Remembrance into our respective pasts,
Gloss over our eyes whilst our perspective drifts apart.

I hold my hand o'er the candle to remember the flame.
I toss myself from the roof to feel the flight again.

The rainsoaked flame wanders through my bones,
My home,
My dampened heart keeps burning.

~Robert van Lingen

Curiosity killed the cat,

But a cat has nine lives,
And I have none.

What can we lose but time?

I've already lost my mind

~Robert van Lingen

Some way I know this pain,
It shamed me to love the way it flowed,

I'm looking at my scars,
Beauty in the burdens.

But I only masked my true pains,
For every night I bled outside,
I also bled within.

Find the blade that cuts your heart,
And get away...
So you no longer have to search for the blade that cuts your arms.

Laying there,
Almost asleep.
Silent, Rustling thoughts.

Reach out for my friend,
...The Heavens stamp upon my weakened chest,
My relentless, petrified trembling.

Is this my becoming?
No.

I am Stronger than This.

~

Let the beast trod his energy asunder until he trods his last.
And there I stand.
I labor these embrittled bones to rise.

I stand here.
I bleed all I have and more,
as I stare into your pestilent eyes,
and I say,

I.
Am.
Strong.

You will not take this from me,
I fear you not.

No matter how many times you crush my heart,
I will rise.
Again.
And Again.

Until the day I rise above you and I can finally...

give you my thanks.

This endless torrent of pain that pours from my heart feeds the earth within which my roots are planted.
I grow stronger with each drop.

You cannot take from me what you've never known.
But,

I forgive you...
because I am strong.

I am.

~Robert van Lingen

Fingertip upon the glass,
   Astounded,
Breathless.
   Cracking the most painful smile..

Lift my head to gaze upon...
   the fallen.

Fly back,
   eyes dart around the room,

Unravel the sheets,
   Unravel my body,
   Stare up,
   Gaze. weep.
fall through the floor.

hanging by my hands.
   fire everywhere,
Cries in every direction.

A tug at my feet,
   A cold, blood-torn face says to me,
   "Go back."

All goes black.

Anger floods my veins,
I scream...
Blood pours from my fist

at the bar,
   watch her dance,
She doesn't see me,
   because I'm not there...

her smile is the most painful knife in my side,
Because it's not mine.

A sharp pain across my face
   Get it together man,

Black again, for just a moment...
   eyes, slowly open.
laying in my bed.

It's 8pm.
   guess I'll just sleep...

again,
to float through the silence.


~Robert van Lingen

Sounds, spoken of my mind,
   Impulsive,
Yet, still overthought.

I never know what to say,
   But always know just how to say it.

I'm quite skilled,
   In the art of scaring you away,
With the words I didn't know how to say.

Stuck in this space of mind,
   That hides me from the correct answer,
Forced to find the long way around.

For the sake to not make a fool of myself,
   I just have to remember...

I Have the Write to Remain Silent

~Robert van Lingen

I guess it's true,
People change when they walk away,
I pray you prove me wrong.

~Robert van Lingen

Every time we, as people...as a group, think of a new category, a new classification, a new label, we further our own separation from each other. Every new name gives us a pre-conceived notion for us to pre-judge other people with.

All of us will be familiar with generational categorization. Millennial, Boomer, Gen X, Y, and Z...etc. We all say, "Millenials are spoiled and have it easy and complain too much," or "The Boomers ruined the economy because they're greedy," or "Gen Z is lazy and never knew anything that wasn't on a screen..."

These sayings, are all just easy ways out... lazy assumptions we can use to generalize one another so that we don't have to put in the effort it takes to actually care...

And yeah, caring is hard.
Truth is, we've all gotten lazy.

Every single "group" of people, has some of the most amazing, loving people you will ever meet, regardless of age, or anything. Love and hatred have no bias as to who you are, where you live, what you think, or when you were born.

Think about it.
It's so easy to see one person doing something selfish to us, and we immediately look at them, and label them according to our own biases, but we never stop to look at the many more people that don't do us wrong; Perhaps even the ones that help us out. When that happens to us, they're just...people.
When we're transgressed, those people become "they." **** them blank, **** those blank, Selfish blank.
And every time we allow these little events to affect us, we become more selfish ourselves... and the cycle goes on.

This doesn't just go for generations. It goes for political separation, gender identity, race, etc.

Every,
Single,
Name,
is an excuse for us to hate each other.
Fuel for the pyre that we ourselves, you and I are tied to.

We are all human. We are all kin. Every single one of us will bleed the same blood, and cry the same tears.
That ******* that cut you off in traffic may have been on the way to the hospital to catch the dying breath of his wife, son, daughter, father, mother, or friend just in time.

We need to stop seeing each other as they, or them.
We,
Are Us.

We,
Are the only people on this tiny little rock in space,
And if we allow ourselves to hate our kin, surely we will destroy everything we know and love.

We live in the age of being overfed with information no one asked for, and we allow this information to divide us as a people.

I don't care if you are Gen Z, Republican, Democrat, Millenial, Man, Woman, or anything in between...you are just like me. You bleed red and you have a heart and a soul that wants to be loved and to feel important and that you're doing the right thing.

There's a very simple solution to this epidemic of social divide.
Next time you feel like someone has wronged you, or done something wrong. Take a step back. Stop and think.
Benefit,
of,
the Doubt.

We need to love ourselves,
but more importantly,
We need to love each other just as much...
Because in the end,
Without each other,
we would just be alone, and lost.
We are meaningless without each other.

What hath I done to earn such disdain?
   Thust'ly I'd treated thee with an utmost courtesy,
   And yet,

I'd call this breath of redundant utterances,
   A practice of utter futility.

The breadth of my wonderment at the crushing silence graced upon my disbelieving ears,
   I stand fast as the imperceptible stones are cast upon my fragile soundings,
   Your callousness resounds and rebounds within my vacant battleground.
   Occupied by none other,
   Confined within my ceaseless, if imperfect, selflessness,

I am merely a soul.
   Cast upon, or down'pon the mercifully unforgiving earth.
   Borne brazenly to those who are willing to listen,
   At the risk of those who won't.

******'d herein I lye,
   Gazing 'pon the relentless, endless skies.

I am merely a man,
   Searching for a home.
   I am merely the mind within which I reside,
   I am,
   Merely,
   Who I am.

Greetings, it is merely I,
   He who breathes despite the lack of air,
   Gasping at a tenuous breeze.

I'd call this breath of redundant utterings,
   A practice of utter futility.

The breadth of my wonderment at the crushing silence graced upon my deafened ears,
   I stand fast as the verbal stone is cast upon my fragile being,
   Your callousness resounds within my vacancy,
   Occupied by none other,
   Confined within my ceaseless selflessness,
   Even if it is imperfect.

I am merely a soul.
   Cast 'pon the mercifully unforgiving earth.
   Borne brazenly to those who are willing to listen,
   At the risk of those who won't.

******'d herein I lye,
   Gazing 'pon the relentless monochrome.
   Searching for any guiding light.

I am merely a man,
   Searching for a home.
   I am merely the mind within which I reside,
   I am,
   Merely,
   Who I am.

~Robert van Lingen

Write my mind,
Stare me blind.

Feel the tale,
Sing the song.

Listen to the past,
Raise the Mast.

Everything we had,
Everything we did.

This is not the end of the story.

~Robert van Lingen

When I give,
Everything I have and more...

My sleeplessness' solace,
Is buried in my dreams.

My world away from the world,
Where there are no more problems to solve.

In my dreams,
Life, is just a flow,

The effortless stream of events,
That I never have to think about again.

The blissfulness of the temporary,
Escape from my woes.

~Robert van Lingen

In this new,
internal extrospection,
my out-of heart experience.

I realize who I've been,
what I've seen,
and how I've made myself bleed,
and others too...

I am Sorrowful.
I am thankful.
I am in pain.
I am hopeful.

Flooded by invisible tears and searing pain at the same time,
and even a hidden happiness,

I won't pretend to know.

I won't pretend to show just how I feel,
or just who I am.
Because I don't know.

All I know is,

I am.

Today,
I stay and reflect.
Like the mirrors floating on a pond, wandering in focus.

At times I am hopeless, distraught, and dazed, pondering.

I'll stop you there, you sad, beaten man.
Do you feel the seas trod upon you, drown you and let you swim further, and further just to regret, forget why you even began?

The shining at the deepest depths is merely a mirror to self-reflect,
to pay respects to what you wish you were.

Did you forget why you're here? Because, in truth, I never forget what I never knew,
why the sky feels the need to fall in disrespect, all upon your war-torn shoulders,
buckling under that very sigh you set free when you realized you're the traitor here, as you just get colder.

varied sighs sing you lies of peace,
poor Icarus, he tried to fly, to plead the sun, to chase infinity.

Do you truly seek peace? You try to run yet create your own inevitabilities, seized by your own dreams. With these ****** knees you've built yourself. Scorned by warnings of your self fulfilling prophecies.

You said so yourself.

First,
find what you need,
then perhaps your ever elusive peace may come,
and bring you to your knees,
to drown in seas of relief.
The war is not over,
Just another day.

To speak of my pains is my release from which.
It is not merely my drudgery within the muds of self-wallowing.
It is an awakening when I read my own words and learn who I am in that moment.
It is a point from which to move on, a stepping stone.

My words,
   Aren't necessarily,
An accurate idea,
   Of who,
I really am.
   They are more,
Expressions of what,
   I don't want to be.


~Robert van Lingen

Fawning over the fissile festivities,
with which I fake my facile form.
Fatal futility floods my far-flung faith in myself.

Feeding the fires of my forgery,
Frantic forethought,
Fictionalizing the facts before my faithless eyes.

Forclosing upon the fractional freedoms that I've so long fought for.
Fearing the unforgiving firestorm that follows,
Once I've finally exhausted faith in my future.

Fielding my final fight,
Standing fast in the face of futility.
Fit to fly into the fray.

The deep songs sing to me,

Inside the mind the notes stride across seas of strings,
Strumming away,

The bellows feed my fires as well they fill my heart with the thunders alight.

I speak not yet,
I scribe my songs to thee, as to myself,
I sing songs upon my piano strings,

I speak not, yet,
I am fluent in Silence.

~Robert van Lingen

Point light source.
Glimpse upon your reality.

Soft-spoken liars,
Emptying their forsaken breath upon battle-scarred ears.

Anticipation of the days to come,
Eases the empty mind;
Drain'd by warfare unseen.

The fight ongoing,
Rough-cracked skin boils in the sun,
Heat-stroked by the anxiety.

Retreat into the shadows,
You poor, blossoming flower.
All you need,
Is partial shade.

Your pastel blossoms will bloom,
With colors that will amaze and astound.

Feed upon the streams that drift by,
And at last you will shine as your heartsongs always knew you could.

Define your own beauty,
And become your very own,
Point light source.

~Robert van Lingen

Bygone are the maybes of yesteryear,
Make way for the probably's of today.

Goodbye,
Gone are the ways of those festering years,
All those tears of sorrow.

Twenty-Five years, and far too many fears,
Have given way,
to the absolutely,
The easily,
The finally's of tomorrow.

The world doesn't owe you a **** thing. Hard work doesn't entitle you to a better life, neither does lineage, money or otherwise.

You aren't entitled to ANYthing.
Some people get more than they "deserve".
Other people get less.

"Deserving" is a manufactured concept to allow us to pity ourselves when we acquire less of a good thing or more of a bad thing than we expected.

When something bad happens to you, you didn't deserve it.
When something amazing happens to you, you didn't deserve it.

Our very existence is a gift, and saying we deserve anything more than to be alive is purely arrogant. Be thankful for every drop of water, every grain of sand, and every speck of dust you have because one day, you may not have those anymore. So cherish the ones who you love, because one day, they may no longer be there either.

Fare well hello there,
Put the comma where you like,

Goodhi,
I am pleased to had been meeting you,

In this world of mime,
Our hellos, the same as goodbyes,
As soon I say hi, you already said bye,
And vice versatile how we speak our words to mean different things.

Hello Poetry,
I am please two half met you,
Under these circumstances,
If only I could see you later,
Talk to you next time we meet again and again we find ourselves in these strange situations.

What ever will we do things really have to be this way?
Fare well hello there.
I guess it depends on what words you decide to read me something nice so I can fall asleep.

.Goodbye Poetry.

Chicken Scratch,
chicken scratch,

   Scribbles, smashed against the page.

You are my Poem.

~Robert van Lingen

A twist,
A burn,
Drown, you say?

Shall I spray these letters on the page for you to read?
May I display the writhing writes that within I keep?

I slash the pen against the inside of my skull,
To write my stories...

We call this,
a poem.

but does that make me,
the poet?

I asked for more,
And so I received.

This accursed war,
With the loves I bleed.

The endless tome,
Detailing endless seas,
of loves,
that will tease and tease.

The dreams of which I dream,
Sing me the songs of a desperate ease,
With which I fell into the spell.

Infatuation,
The boiling swell.
This passion's disease.
My subtle hell.

Heavenly visions of the loves I'd once held,
Turn to these disquieting reminders of the pains I've once felt.

I'd asked for more,
But so I received.

Bring an end to this everlasting taunt and tease.
and grant me this reprieve.

Then,
I may, one day,
Be allowed to sleep.

Foreign places,
Foreign faces,
With nothing,
   And no one to lose...

And not a second's grief gain'd but with my own anxieties.

Just a moment's notice is all it takes to turn a moment's motives from having a good time to just getting away.

Spare me the sickness of my socialities,
Stare into my petrified eyes and fill them with tears,

If nothing else,
But just to displace my fears.

~Robert van Lingen

The desperate search,
For some familiar earth.

The rise of the uncontrollable,
Until we resort to the toll of will,

The anxious blade,
Is the friend we made.

In our trying times,
That made tunnels of our eyes.

When our dice fall upon the zero,
There's no telling where we'll go,

Except to our secret place,
Where we've hidden our friendly blade.

Pain to distract from pain,
Just another color in our endless rain.

Ashamed of what we've done,
The scars we bear,
Are proof that we've won.
Because we were there.

Because we're still here.

For the memories of those who aren't,
Now would warrant a graceful tear.

For our brothers and sisters in arms,
and the arms who've bled,
we're the ones who know...

Just how strong we are.

You've made it this far,
There's no telling where you'll go

~Robert van Lingen