As I sit in my room, indulging in the sound of Audioslave; the coffee maker clicks behind me sending up a soothing CLOUD of aroma.  Maybe it's the music, or maybe it was the weather.  This morning I sat in the lounge and watched the low hanging clouds fly past the DIRTY glass windows.  I love cloudy days; something about the atmospheric PRESSURE causes me to be aesthetic.  In these moments the FURY of the sun is hidden behind a veil of clouds, its fury dimmed by the looming grey giants sailing through the skies.  Has it really been twenty years?  Twenty years since I emerged screaming into a WORLD I hardly knew, so much has happened since then; so much has been FORGOTTEN...  Why do I feel this GUILT towards the past, as if I owed it some un-paid toll?  The road of life has no toll booths, we all ride and we all get off, the toll is our lives.  There is no use mourning the past, living life constantly HAUNTED by phantoms and wraiths; why then does this ghost not leave, why can this DEMON NOT be EXORCISED?  My bed shakes at night and dreams elude me, I find my thoughts drifting away to lands I've never seen, to soil on which I have never TREAD.  Like an old man I sit and watch as people and life pass by.  Sitting on the bench of life unnoticed, UNSEEN; just another shadow.  Who will mourn the passing of this old man, when the sun rises and finds the bench empty, FORSAKEN?  In the end we are slaves to our GUILT, endlessly searching for another hit of pleasure to dull the PAIN.  Time itself will eventually come for everyone of us, silently or violently, it NEVER FAILS.  It is useless to run, useless to HIDE.  It is a presence not unFAMILIAR to me, for it haunts my every step.  I take another sip of coffee and swallow the bitter drink, like BITTER MEMORIES of the past.  These words themselves will eventually disappear, for under the shadow of time..... ALL FALL...

This post was written to Audioslave's song The Last Remaining Light (middle portion <real audio>) as well as Shadow on the Sun ( middle portion <real audio> ).  Sorry, all I could find sample-wise was the first 30 seconds and 30 seconds in the middle.  I guess this could be called my salute to 4-20, maybe not...