Cigarette

Fort Minor

"Cigarette"

Man I love this rap game

Mainly cause its cool

To add a little spice to the life you've been through

Everyone exaggerates a tiny little bit

To make that shit sound more gangster than it really is

You can't appear weak man

We wanna hear street

Wanna hear you spit your thug over this here beat

Dont take it as sarcastic

I can't get enough

Im telling you

You can call my bluff

If it's not rough, then I really don't need it

I'm not even ashamed

I got too much reality thats filling up my brain

so sell me on that chronic, I'm addicted to the game

Suck it up like a cigarette, light it up

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do<br/>

Once in awhile but between me and you

Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled

I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Let me tell you something that I realized tonight

My hip hop radio is like marlboro lights

They're both selling stories and they sound about the same

Cigarettes say their safe, wrappers claim they really bang

We dont care if it's true when we lay the money down<br/>

We don't believe the words, we just love the way they sound

They're acting like we're idiots, They're lying to our face

Maybe we are idiots, we buy it anyway

I'm runnin out to get the next rapper's CD

Just suckin up the guns, drugs, and misogyny

The same way that I suck up all the stories

When I breathe that little bit of death supposedly cancer-free and

Everything they say's got the truth twisted up

But twisted up's what I want man, I can't get enough

Cuz even though we know it's all just a big bluff

We just light another up, what

We don't give a fuck

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do

Once in awhile but between me and you

Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled

I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

Listen to the words, Listen for awhile

Lip Service radio, dont touch the dial

If you're in the car

Turn up the track man

Give the whole neighborhood some second hand rap

Matter of fact

Listen to the words, Listen for awhile

Lip Service radio, dont touch the dial

If you're in the car

Turn up the track man

Give the whole neighborhood some second hand rap

Its just like a cigarette, its something that I do

Once in awhile but between me and you

Its just like a cigarette Nobody's really fooled

I dont want the truth, I wanna feel fucking cool

So since I came down with pneumonia, I haven't really smoked. I think I've averaged one cig a day, and one day I think I had one and half, because I couldn't make it all the way through the second one.
I'm so f'ing sick of being f'ing sick that I might just go crazy. I don't understand why I'm the most unhealthy person ever.

"Letters from Home"

"Letters from Home"
By John Michael Montgomery

My Dear Son, it is almost June,
I hope this letter catches up to you, and finds you well.
Its been dry but they're calling for rain,
And everything's the same ol' same in Johnsonville.
Your stubborn 'ol Daddy ain't said too much,
But I'm sure you know he sends his love,
And she goes on,In a letter from home.

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy, and they all laugh,
Like there's something funny bout' the way I talk,
When I say: "Mama sends her best y'all."
I fold it up an' put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an' get back to work.
An' it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home.

My Dearest Love, its almost dawn.
I've been lying here all night long wondering where you might be.
I saw your Mama and I showed her the ring.
Man on the television said something so I couldn't sleep.
But I'll be all right, I'm just missing you.
An' this is me kissing you:
XX's and OO's,
In a letter from home.

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy, and they all laugh,
'Cause she calls me "Honey", but they take it hard,
'Cause I don't read the good parts.
I fold it up an' put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an' get back to work.
An' it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home.

Dear Son, I know I ain't written,
But sittin' here tonight, alone in the kitchen, it occurs to me,
I might not have said, so I'll say it now:
Son, you make me proud.

I hold it up and show my buddies,
Like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy, but no one laughs,
'Cause there ain't nothing funny when a soldier cries.
An' I just wipe me eyes.
I fold it up an' put it in my shirt,
Pick up my gun an' get back to work.
An' it keeps me driving me on,
Waiting on letters from home.

I guess it makes sense why this song makes me want to cry. I have been to so many going away and welcome home parties. When they go away you never really imagine that they won't come back, you give them a big hug, and tell them to be safe. Then all you can do is pray they come back.

My friend Megan's husband left right after they got married. He has done at least two tours in Iraq. I remember she said that she was so depressed the entire time he was gone she couldn't do anything. She wouldn't here from him for days...she would just cry. Once his Lieutenant called her because her husband was having a hard time getting through to her on the phone. When the man said who he was, she fell to the ground, expecting to hear the worse.

I remember back back in the day, Cristin's cousin used to send me love letters from boot camp. I think I might still have them somewhere...

I just don't know what I would do if Bobby went to war...
My brother tried to join the air force when I was in 9th or 10th grade...
My dad wanted to be in the military...
My uncle killed himself after coming back from war...

I remember being on base one day after a boy came back from war. He had died and the funeral procession started from the base after his body arrived via plane. As the base was covered with men in uniforms saluting the hearse, I cried.

It's sad, and I know that why we do it, and I know why they do it. I just know that I pray for everyone who is over there protecting us and our country, giving their lives for our country.

Tim (Part 1)

The Lost Trailers
Album: Trailer Trash
Song: Favorite Friends
Copyright 1997 G. Stokes Nielson/ Two State Brothers Music(ASCAP)

We couldn't leave the woods 'til the bottle was done,
Then we'd all go fishing in the dusk bitten sun.
Not old enough to drive, but we knew if we could,
We'd have all the women in our neighborhood.

But we never thought that one of us would go away,
No, we never dreamed that we might cry on teenage graves.
The fairytale ends with the loss of our favorite friend.

Well, the funeral was nice, or that's what you're supposed to say,
We all sat together staring out into grey.
It was hard to believe that out of five faithful friends,
Four were left broken while one rode the wind.

And the nights out on the town fell few and far between,
Cause all we talked about was how great things used to be,
Our innocence ends with the loss of our favorite friend.

It seems like the best of us always fall to early grace,
And the road will keep rolling on, but angels are hard to replace,
I guess it was crazy luck, to have someone like that to lose,
But he couldn't stay long, God must have missed him, too.

Now Charlie is in college, and I hit the road,
And Al is building churches in New Mexico,
Steve is running from the law, but that's nothing new,
We all say we'll meet back home but we never do.

And the woods burned down long ago, the old neighborhood is gone,
And I can't get drunk no more, cause I hate drinking alone.
But I know in the end we'll get back to our favorite friends.
Cause life is much better when it is shared with our favorite friends.

I'm at work, listening to my ipod when this song came on. The first time I heard it I cried, it still evokes memories of Tim when I listen to it now, and brings tears to my eyes. I can talk about how much I love Tim another time; this is more about what happened to Tim.

At college I lived with Tim and Scott, Tim and I were friends with Russell and Ryan (who is a girl) and we spent a lot of our time together. Scott was my boyfriend at the time, but he wasn’t much fun, he spent a lot of time at home. We all graduated in the same class, and I met Tim’s parents for the first time that day.

The night before graduation, the snow was terrible, I guess that’s upstate New York for you, and Tim’s parents were on there way in on the train. They called him for a ride to the hotel, and I lent him my car, because I was the only one with four-wheel drive. The next day, the first thing they did was thank me for letting Tim borrow my car, they are from New Orleans, and they weren’t big on snow.

“We’ve heard so much about you! How are you doing?” and “Congratulations!” They are really lovely people. We talked a little bit after the graduation ceremony, but I didn’t really see them again. After the graduation I went home for the weekend because I was coming back to take another class the following week. Everyone else went home for three weeks because they were coming back to get their bachelors. Tim, Russell, and I talked about meeting back up after they started school again, but it never got to happen.

Just a few weeks after graduation, I was just waking up from a nap and checked my voicemail; I had been avoiding phone calls from my friend Ryan, for no reason in particular. To my best recollection the voicemail sound something like this…



“Hey Claudia, its Ryan; Tim and Russell got in a really bad car accident. Tim died and Russell’s in the hospital. Call me back.”



I remember thinking to myself, I know hadn’t been returning her calls, but that’s a pretty fucked up joke to play to get me to call you back. Regardless, I call her, she explains it.

Russell and Tim were on their way to the mall, in the middle of the day, sober and everything. They must have hit a pothole or something, because all of a sudden the car spun out of control. As the car was spinning it played Russian roulette with who might be the one to die, because cars were still coming, it was just a matter of which side got hit. Tim took the blow to the driver’s side of the car. He absorbed most of the impact, and died, saving Russell’s life. Russell slammed his head into the windshield and the passenger door window. The accident happened in Massachusetts, and a bunch of people were driving up there to see Russell in the hospital. I don’t remember if she explained it that well, or if those were just details I picked up over time.

I mumbled something to Ryan about how I would call her back. I slowly lowered my phone away from my head and it fell out of my hand onto the floor. I started walking to the stairs to find my mom. I started to breath heavy, and cry. Before I knew it, I collapsed in the middle of the staircase, hysterical. I was screaming and crying. My mom tried to console me but I could just stutter out something about Tim and Russell and car accidents.

No, we never dreamed that we might cry on teenage graves...