TheScarletBlade
Star Spangled Man
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2004
- Posts
- 2,502
((This Intro Post Is Based On A True Story))
(( Thanks to Maroon 5 and Nickelback for Song Lyrics))
I know it's hard to remember,
The people we used to be...
It's even harder to picture,
That you're not here next to me.
Any other day this song would never be playing on repeat. Skipping the song on every radio station every time that it was played by every rock and hip hop station, suddenly it makes sense and the lyrics strike home, hitting home harder than a 7.62 round to the chest. Its amazing the effect that just listening to the lyrics of a song, truly paying attention to them, letting them sink right into your soul and become your entire world: suddenly the story the sad song tells is your story, every sad and repressed memory suddenly linked into every word that becomes part of a long,linked chain and ball that threatens to drag you off the ledge into an abyss so dark and deep that you don't want to disappear into yet its so hard to fight, to put one foot in front of the other as you step farther and farther away from that abyss: it would be so much easier to just let it drag you down into nothingness.
I've wasted my nights,
You turned out the lights
Now I'm paralyzed,
Still stuck in that time,
When we called it love,
But even the sun sets in paradise
Its hard to believe that the former US Marine and amateur body builder, 6'1 and a solid 225, could be paralyzed by anything short of a physical ailment yet they didn't teach you to deal with this. As a special forces instructor, Tim could track someone through the wilderness for days, fire almost every weapon on the planet and medically save someone with any number of traumatic injuries but there was nothing in training that could prepare you for the mental side of things. Its very easy to get someone in the gym or on the track to physically train them yet how do you fight the demons? how do you combat the memories of handing a folded flag to your best friends crying wife and infant son? How do you forgot the long nights spent sitting in a 6 by 6 foot hole in the ground with your 3 best friends? Remembering the talks about hopes,dreams,girls,games...now being the only one who remembers those conversation because your the only one still alive to remember....
you turned your back on tomorrow
'Cause you forgot yesterday.
I gave you my love to borrow,
But you just gave it away.
What happens when the Marine Corps tells you that you can't stay around anymore and turns your back on you? Suddenly the plan to be either a marine or take a bullet is no longer in effect, how do you adapt? You try to find a brighter future and look at the good side of things: spend time with an amazing girlfriend, go to school, settle down into a normal life and live for those not living anymore, enjoy the heroes reward. Suddenly the grass is greener, food tastes sweeter, the sun is brighter and everyone you know is proud of you, is happy your alive and loves you....guess there is a reason we all watch the fairy tale Disney movies when were kids: we would all like to believe that fantasy world.
If "Happy Ever Afters" did exist,
I would still be holding you like this
All those fairy tales are full of shit
One more fucking love song, I'll be sick.
Truth of the matter is that fairy tales are just books in movies for a reason, because in the real world: Prince Charming leaves the country to go fight the dragon and returns to find out that Snow White is banging the 7 dwarves, that his family got used to never seeing him so they don't really care hes hanging around but are disgruntled he has to live off them for a while, friends forgot who he was or thought he was dead and the red,white and blue flag that he carried all across the world, the star spangled banner that was draped over the wooden coffins of three real life heroes means less than all the "pussy money weed" and flashy iPhones to the people who walk past where it hangs on the street corner, not even bothering to look up at it. What happens when your world shatters? How do you cope with the very feet beneath you disappearing in the blink of an eye? What do you anchor onto when your one rock, the one good thing you have to look forward to was never there in the first place, that her lies were just compounded with the rest of the lies.....Where is the truth?
Truth is at the bottom of a bottle. The large dark blue bottle with the big white words " SKYY" rests gently on the clustered yet polished light oak computer desk, surrounded by a bunch of simularily empty small blue beer bottles. They were breakfast, lunch and dinner and were consumed in the very short span of a few hours. The running theory was that eventually there would be truth at the bottom, like the prize in a cereal box, if you just keep drinking and drinking. At a minimum if you can't find truth at the bottom, at least it numbs the pain and drowns out the memories, letting a wave of amber colored liquid bury and suffocate memories of tender kisses, fierce embraces, rifle fire, the dull thunk sound a bullet makes as it shatters the armor plate of an armor vest and pierces a chest cavity. A strong hand, rough and callused, reaches for another half drank bottle of beer yet the usually graceful movement is dulled and slowed, pushing the bottle over and spilling the contents out all over the desk, like memories spilling and spiraling out: all the "I love you's" and "I wanna start a life with you" the words burned into consciousness, a double edge sword that once brought so much hope, now doing the opposite as they twist and poison any hope, snuffing the word out like a gust of wind blowing out a candle.
it's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause living with me must have damn near killed you
The song changes, the current situation doesn't. The drilled response is to clean up the mess yet the liquid has covered most of what is on the desk: the HD monitor, the loaded .45 caliber pistol and lastly a golden wedding bad, inlaid with three diamonds: it was a very plain and simple ring, nothing to fancy but the only thing a marine could afford on the little money that he had left. Lucid for a split second, Tim reached for the ring and picked it up quickly: immediately wiping it off on his shirt as he tried to clean it. Slow, drunken swipes down his shirt finally got most of the spilled beer off it and despite everything, it sparkled, all the polish on it mostly intact from days of cleaning the already clean ring, cleaning it and staring at while on the phone with "the love of his life", the simple band of metal represented the future, every hope and dream that he and his friends had shared, everything they fought in died for was memorialized in a physical symbol.....so small yet so powerful.....unfortunately there were no hobbits around, no volcanoes to throw it into and instead of being a black demonic knight looking thing, sauron was 5'10, athletic with a pretty smile, not to mention female.....
Letting his eyes flutter to the pistol, there was beer all over it. His mind resorting to the only thing he knew, he clutched the ring in his left hand as he reached for the soaked weapon: a marine had to have a clean weapon before he could deal with personal things. Muscle memory kicking in as he checked the weapon was on safe, he slowly, drunkenly stumbled two steps before he ended up slamming on the hard wood floor, staring at the red stained wood for a second, taking in its majesty before reaching forward slowly and pushing his entire body forward, literally low crawling the last few steps to the comfortable couch. Looking like a limp fish as he slowly flopped up onto the comfortable couch, suddenly his focus came sharp like the crack of a whip. Clearing the weapon with two smooth moves and then pulling it into pieces, there was a look of grim determination as hands followed a familiar pattern, cleaning each piece of the weapon slow and smooth: you would never be able to tell he was drunk by the way he cleaned and put together each piece until the weapon was together and loaded.
The moment of clarity seems to disappear as the familiar weight of the weapon in his right hand brings back the memories of when he first held the weapon, a gift from of his best friend, the smile on his face replaced by the pale, lifeless image on his face as he was lifeless being carried out on Tim's back. Opening his left hand with his palm up, the faint glint of gold catches his eyes and draws his attention, holding it transfixed: blurred memories of his friend and his girl mixed, split and then faded. The alcohol was really effecting him now, it was getting pretty bad, yet it didn't dull the pain, it made it hurt worse, the wound on his heart raw and bleeding yet there was no way to cauturize the wound, no way to fix the pieces. Trying to focus, looking at the pistol it reminded him of his best friend and his tattoo: the words "Death Before Dishonor" in cursive beneath an american flag....death before dishonor....that was the truth.....that was the way....
It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
for handing you a heart worth breaking
and I've been wrong, i've been down,
been to the bottom of every bottle
Using his thumb to click the safety off the pistol, it made a soft sound yet it seemed to sound like the hammer nailing the coffin shut, the lever clicking home to let the curtain on the stage drop. Staring at the live weapon in one hand and the golden ring in his other, a single solemn tear slowly slid down his right cheek, he couldn't hold it back any longer, he wasn't strong enough anymore. Looking around, even so drunk he could hardly think, Tim knew he couldn't blow his brains out in the front room, he should go outside. Stumbling drunkenly with the weapon pointed at the ground, finger straight and off the trigger, it took a few minutes to figure out how to open the door and slam through the screen but finally Tim was on his front lawn. Shirtless, having removed his shirt to clean his pistol, the only thing he was wearing was a pair of red gym shorts. The cool breeze caused the tan skin on his chest to goose bump, the pacific northwest dew on the grass freezing on bare feet as grass squished underneath him as he hit the smallest rock in the world and slowly tripped forward. Hitting the cold,wet earth with a thud, the pistol skipped softly out of his grasp. It was only a foot away and yet it seemed like it was on the other side of world, as he couldn't seem to reach it no matter how hard he tried, the world was spinning, everything was so blurry.....it shouldn't be this hard.
Struggling to grab the weapon,something else caught his eye, the fainest glint of metal as the ring laid among the dark grass. Staring at it like, hypnotized by its glow, holding his head up to stare right at it, Tim finally rested his head down on the soft earth beneath him and broke down, tears flowing down his cheeks as he slowly brought his limbs together in a ball.....it was so cold.....why was it so cold??
(( Thanks to Maroon 5 and Nickelback for Song Lyrics))
I know it's hard to remember,
The people we used to be...
It's even harder to picture,
That you're not here next to me.
Any other day this song would never be playing on repeat. Skipping the song on every radio station every time that it was played by every rock and hip hop station, suddenly it makes sense and the lyrics strike home, hitting home harder than a 7.62 round to the chest. Its amazing the effect that just listening to the lyrics of a song, truly paying attention to them, letting them sink right into your soul and become your entire world: suddenly the story the sad song tells is your story, every sad and repressed memory suddenly linked into every word that becomes part of a long,linked chain and ball that threatens to drag you off the ledge into an abyss so dark and deep that you don't want to disappear into yet its so hard to fight, to put one foot in front of the other as you step farther and farther away from that abyss: it would be so much easier to just let it drag you down into nothingness.
I've wasted my nights,
You turned out the lights
Now I'm paralyzed,
Still stuck in that time,
When we called it love,
But even the sun sets in paradise
Its hard to believe that the former US Marine and amateur body builder, 6'1 and a solid 225, could be paralyzed by anything short of a physical ailment yet they didn't teach you to deal with this. As a special forces instructor, Tim could track someone through the wilderness for days, fire almost every weapon on the planet and medically save someone with any number of traumatic injuries but there was nothing in training that could prepare you for the mental side of things. Its very easy to get someone in the gym or on the track to physically train them yet how do you fight the demons? how do you combat the memories of handing a folded flag to your best friends crying wife and infant son? How do you forgot the long nights spent sitting in a 6 by 6 foot hole in the ground with your 3 best friends? Remembering the talks about hopes,dreams,girls,games...now being the only one who remembers those conversation because your the only one still alive to remember....
you turned your back on tomorrow
'Cause you forgot yesterday.
I gave you my love to borrow,
But you just gave it away.
What happens when the Marine Corps tells you that you can't stay around anymore and turns your back on you? Suddenly the plan to be either a marine or take a bullet is no longer in effect, how do you adapt? You try to find a brighter future and look at the good side of things: spend time with an amazing girlfriend, go to school, settle down into a normal life and live for those not living anymore, enjoy the heroes reward. Suddenly the grass is greener, food tastes sweeter, the sun is brighter and everyone you know is proud of you, is happy your alive and loves you....guess there is a reason we all watch the fairy tale Disney movies when were kids: we would all like to believe that fantasy world.
If "Happy Ever Afters" did exist,
I would still be holding you like this
All those fairy tales are full of shit
One more fucking love song, I'll be sick.
Truth of the matter is that fairy tales are just books in movies for a reason, because in the real world: Prince Charming leaves the country to go fight the dragon and returns to find out that Snow White is banging the 7 dwarves, that his family got used to never seeing him so they don't really care hes hanging around but are disgruntled he has to live off them for a while, friends forgot who he was or thought he was dead and the red,white and blue flag that he carried all across the world, the star spangled banner that was draped over the wooden coffins of three real life heroes means less than all the "pussy money weed" and flashy iPhones to the people who walk past where it hangs on the street corner, not even bothering to look up at it. What happens when your world shatters? How do you cope with the very feet beneath you disappearing in the blink of an eye? What do you anchor onto when your one rock, the one good thing you have to look forward to was never there in the first place, that her lies were just compounded with the rest of the lies.....Where is the truth?
Truth is at the bottom of a bottle. The large dark blue bottle with the big white words " SKYY" rests gently on the clustered yet polished light oak computer desk, surrounded by a bunch of simularily empty small blue beer bottles. They were breakfast, lunch and dinner and were consumed in the very short span of a few hours. The running theory was that eventually there would be truth at the bottom, like the prize in a cereal box, if you just keep drinking and drinking. At a minimum if you can't find truth at the bottom, at least it numbs the pain and drowns out the memories, letting a wave of amber colored liquid bury and suffocate memories of tender kisses, fierce embraces, rifle fire, the dull thunk sound a bullet makes as it shatters the armor plate of an armor vest and pierces a chest cavity. A strong hand, rough and callused, reaches for another half drank bottle of beer yet the usually graceful movement is dulled and slowed, pushing the bottle over and spilling the contents out all over the desk, like memories spilling and spiraling out: all the "I love you's" and "I wanna start a life with you" the words burned into consciousness, a double edge sword that once brought so much hope, now doing the opposite as they twist and poison any hope, snuffing the word out like a gust of wind blowing out a candle.
it's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause living with me must have damn near killed you
The song changes, the current situation doesn't. The drilled response is to clean up the mess yet the liquid has covered most of what is on the desk: the HD monitor, the loaded .45 caliber pistol and lastly a golden wedding bad, inlaid with three diamonds: it was a very plain and simple ring, nothing to fancy but the only thing a marine could afford on the little money that he had left. Lucid for a split second, Tim reached for the ring and picked it up quickly: immediately wiping it off on his shirt as he tried to clean it. Slow, drunken swipes down his shirt finally got most of the spilled beer off it and despite everything, it sparkled, all the polish on it mostly intact from days of cleaning the already clean ring, cleaning it and staring at while on the phone with "the love of his life", the simple band of metal represented the future, every hope and dream that he and his friends had shared, everything they fought in died for was memorialized in a physical symbol.....so small yet so powerful.....unfortunately there were no hobbits around, no volcanoes to throw it into and instead of being a black demonic knight looking thing, sauron was 5'10, athletic with a pretty smile, not to mention female.....
Letting his eyes flutter to the pistol, there was beer all over it. His mind resorting to the only thing he knew, he clutched the ring in his left hand as he reached for the soaked weapon: a marine had to have a clean weapon before he could deal with personal things. Muscle memory kicking in as he checked the weapon was on safe, he slowly, drunkenly stumbled two steps before he ended up slamming on the hard wood floor, staring at the red stained wood for a second, taking in its majesty before reaching forward slowly and pushing his entire body forward, literally low crawling the last few steps to the comfortable couch. Looking like a limp fish as he slowly flopped up onto the comfortable couch, suddenly his focus came sharp like the crack of a whip. Clearing the weapon with two smooth moves and then pulling it into pieces, there was a look of grim determination as hands followed a familiar pattern, cleaning each piece of the weapon slow and smooth: you would never be able to tell he was drunk by the way he cleaned and put together each piece until the weapon was together and loaded.
The moment of clarity seems to disappear as the familiar weight of the weapon in his right hand brings back the memories of when he first held the weapon, a gift from of his best friend, the smile on his face replaced by the pale, lifeless image on his face as he was lifeless being carried out on Tim's back. Opening his left hand with his palm up, the faint glint of gold catches his eyes and draws his attention, holding it transfixed: blurred memories of his friend and his girl mixed, split and then faded. The alcohol was really effecting him now, it was getting pretty bad, yet it didn't dull the pain, it made it hurt worse, the wound on his heart raw and bleeding yet there was no way to cauturize the wound, no way to fix the pieces. Trying to focus, looking at the pistol it reminded him of his best friend and his tattoo: the words "Death Before Dishonor" in cursive beneath an american flag....death before dishonor....that was the truth.....that was the way....
It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
for handing you a heart worth breaking
and I've been wrong, i've been down,
been to the bottom of every bottle
Using his thumb to click the safety off the pistol, it made a soft sound yet it seemed to sound like the hammer nailing the coffin shut, the lever clicking home to let the curtain on the stage drop. Staring at the live weapon in one hand and the golden ring in his other, a single solemn tear slowly slid down his right cheek, he couldn't hold it back any longer, he wasn't strong enough anymore. Looking around, even so drunk he could hardly think, Tim knew he couldn't blow his brains out in the front room, he should go outside. Stumbling drunkenly with the weapon pointed at the ground, finger straight and off the trigger, it took a few minutes to figure out how to open the door and slam through the screen but finally Tim was on his front lawn. Shirtless, having removed his shirt to clean his pistol, the only thing he was wearing was a pair of red gym shorts. The cool breeze caused the tan skin on his chest to goose bump, the pacific northwest dew on the grass freezing on bare feet as grass squished underneath him as he hit the smallest rock in the world and slowly tripped forward. Hitting the cold,wet earth with a thud, the pistol skipped softly out of his grasp. It was only a foot away and yet it seemed like it was on the other side of world, as he couldn't seem to reach it no matter how hard he tried, the world was spinning, everything was so blurry.....it shouldn't be this hard.
Struggling to grab the weapon,something else caught his eye, the fainest glint of metal as the ring laid among the dark grass. Staring at it like, hypnotized by its glow, holding his head up to stare right at it, Tim finally rested his head down on the soft earth beneath him and broke down, tears flowing down his cheeks as he slowly brought his limbs together in a ball.....it was so cold.....why was it so cold??
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