...and the battle begun.

"the positive will always overcome the negative"

A dimly-lit blue sea of hands under a horizon of smoke as dreads plague the canopy of the crowd. Matt Embree emerged, dressed in light, like the second coming of Christ.

After playing through "...And the Battle Begun" from front to back, nearly at perfection, Embree let out a simple soft-spoken "thank you" to the audience, raised his arm up and topped it off with two fingers straight out in a peace-sign formation. He just stood there, still in the moment. What a sight to see.

Freedom.

in that case, i'm a celebrity.

"there's no such thing as rock stars. there's just people who play music"
- frank turner.

the name Dancing With the Stars implies celebrities dancing. kate gosselin (of John and Kate plus 8) is not a star and certainly not a celebrity. she'll be rehearsing at home and flying to california and back to compete on the show. at this point, the kids are probably better off anyway.

and Celebrity Fit Club also implies the same thing; fat celebrities competing and shedding blood, sweat and tears (and fat), yet all i see is a fat-fuck-waste-of-skin kevin federline (but seriously, he got really fat), among other human shells.

but hey, a celebrity's purpose is to entertain the masses. they're just entertaining us for all the wrong reasons.

quote of the day.

"insanity's expensive," she laughed and paid for her pills.
- a regular at the pharmacy.

last day of childhood.

in less than 24 hours, the death of my childhood will be in effect as my 2oth birthday dawns upon me. now on one hand, maybe i'm overreacting about all this. to me, being 20 is a wasted year - not literally, but nothing really changes. no new privileges, just the thought that your teenage years are gone and they're never coming back. i've practically lived a quarter of my life already! on a side note, this summer will mark the 5th year of me working at the good old pharmacy. in essence, i've worked there for a quarter of my entire life. fucking strange thought.

tomorrow marks my twentieth year of life on this earth. and i couldn't be happier.

if we're stuck on this ship and it's sinking
then we might as well have a parade.

88 strong.

hospitals are something i'll never get used to.
the smells. the lights. the sounds. the air is always thick.

i've been to my fair share of funerals, more than the average person my age (i would think)
i can recall 5 right off the bat, most of them ten or more years ago.

the dust has settled for now,
but there's always something lurking, waiting to kick the dirt right back in your face.
I'm just thankful...for now.

go on, film the world before it happens.

how much more can the sky piss out?
winter overstayed the season.
mother nature is getting greedy

the cops are always hungry in this place
but I can drive these streets with eyes closed,
cause the roads are watching me


this goddamn town is in on this goddamn show.

this is not an exit.

i've been digging Saves the Day at an unhealthy level lately, at an increasingly sick rate. maybe it was because i was prepping to see them Saturday, which was 2 days ago. but they're stickin' around for a while. Stay What You Are sang to me for the first time tonight. it's easily up there now. this, in turn, has been influencing my writing the past week or so and it'll damn sure continue now.

seven hundred forty four hours - snapshot like a blink of your brown stare.
tonight's snow and rain taunted me. they knew it. we knew too.
the lights are out but the whites are as bright as the snow outside.
this heart is dancing in this throat and there's nothing more to do.

to many more.