I looked in my satchel for anything useful, anything that could be used as a weapon. A grenade, ammo, a rock, a stick, anything. I never realized how useless a gun is without ammunition. Nevertheless, there I was, strapped to the teeth without a single round of ammunition. I was on my back, with all the carnage in front of me. A battle which has blazed for hours, and I the only survivor. I managed to crawl on a severely wounded leg through the mangled casualties to the foot of the west hill. The only thing in my way was that hill, and whatever lay on the other side.

While rummaging through my bag I remembered the long strip of bandage tucked away and retrieved it. I looked down at my leg. It was definitely broken, that was quite clear. It didn't look like bone ripping through the side of my leg but I didn't know what else it could have been. Shrapnel, maybe, but that didn't look quite right. None of it was easy to make out. The entire bottom half of my right leg was shredded. So I ripped what I could of my pant leg off and began twirling the bandage around it. I didn't realize then how lucky I was my foot was intact; completely fine. Then, I only noticed the strangest thing, not one bit of it hurt.

I went back to the bag once my leg was wrapped up and I found something else. It was a dog-eared photograph of my daughter. My little girl, age four and three-quarters, brown hair, blue eyes, posing for school pictures. On the back, in the cutest handwriting possible was, i love my daddy.

That hurt.

This didn't belong here. Instead of returning it to the bag, I tucked it away in my vest, close to my heart. But back in the bag I found one more thing.

One 9mm round. A single bullet. Like a period at the end of the sentence of my life.

I loaded the round into a magazine. My Beretta had one shot. I didn't know what I was going to use it for, but I always knew what I could have used it for. And something like that sticks in the back of your mind and never leaves, even when you think it does.

But then, I finally heard my opposition. Voices in the distance, over the hill. Too far to determine the numbers, but definitely more than one. Saving the bullet, I holstered the firearm and began climbing the hill. I wormed my way up, kicking with my one good leg, dragging the other through the rocks and high grass. I suddenly felt a warmth rush through it. Looking down, I saw fresh blood seeping through the gauze. The warmth boiled into pain that flushed through my wounds. I dared not to scream. Surprise was my only advantage and I wasn't giving that up. Instead, I clenched my teeth and gripped the dirt and accepted the pain. Only a few more feet to the top.

Grunting and trembling, I pulled myself up, one arm after another, inching ever so closer. Behind me was a trail of blood to the bottom of the hill; hand prints on the rocks from my slit fingers. My leg pounded and my hands throbbed and ached. But I finally crested the top. I fought to use what I thought was my last ounce of strength to lift my head and face my opponent.

On the other side of the hill, about 50 yards from where I struggled to stay conscious, was a field of soldiers. The center row was flanked with three more on each side. I guessed there were about seventy of them but later it seemed like more. Every one of them was carrying a rifle, no doubt filled to the brim with ammo.

I stared at them for a long time, watched them march right toward me. But suddenly a felt a surge of power run through me. My eyes flowed open with it. I pushed myself up with my arms and got my good knee under me. I stoop up as much as I could without putting any pressure on my right leg. I un-holstered my Beretta with one hand and took out my daughter's picture with the other. I looked into her eyes and stood up on both legs, not even noticing the pain flaring up my side. I started marching toward my enemy, leg bones grinding together. I kissed my daughter's face, held my Beretta high, and turned that period into an exclamation point.

It's been awhile since a posted and there's some good reasons for that but I'll get to those in a second. I'm posting today because when I woke up this morning I wished I didn't have to. And once I dragged myself out of bed I moved to the couch for another couple of hours. In short, I felt like shit and this is the only place where I can get on a let loose to a public audience, and that always makes me feel a little bit better. So this post is for me, not any of you that probably aren't reading it anyway, so don't feel like you need to comment because you don't. But I'm guessing you figured that one out already.
My brother's in jail again. He's a thief, a liar, and a heroin addict. He's a chemically changed person and will never be my brother again. The way I look at it, there are two ends to the road he's on: death or prison. I'm glad he's in jail, at least I know he's not dead.
My step-dad is going ape shit. My mom blames Matt on him. He's a desperate man at the end of his rope and grasping at the few straws he has left. Not to mention he is a very angry, angry person.
My mom met some guy. She's been out with him for who knows how long. She'll go to work and not come home until she gets off work the next day. She's pretending these problems don't exist so she can hang around this jerk-off and be selfishly happy. They're both being so goddamn childish. Even in the rare occasion that my parents are in the same room together they either ignore each other or yell at each other. Neither one of them is doing anything to solve this problem. Both of them put too much work into the house to leave it.
My sister. My beautiful, bright, young, talented, twelve-year-old sister. She's stuck in the middle of this fucking nonsensical feud. No one seems to care. No one cares when she's having a nervous break-down in the middle of our front yard. Jesus Christ, someone help my sister because I can't be there all the time to calm her down. And to be quite honest, I don't want to ever hear my sister cry like that again.
In more recent news, my grandmother has cancer. My last grandmother. Last I heard it was either cervical or liver. She's bedridden and I can't muster up the courage to go and see her. I guess that makes me childish or selfish or both but I think that would be it for me. I'll go, eventually, and I hope it's before it's too late, but I don't think I'll be able to handle very much of it.
Here I am, stuck between a rock and another bigger fucking rock. I can't change the world, I can't control anything. I can't control my self.
And this is on top of all the normal stress of going to college, growing up, finding a job, and (for the life of me I don't know why she's pressuring me into this now, she couldn't have picked a worse time) getting married. The only thing that holds me up is the support from everyone that isn't being a complete fucking idiot. Also there's the future. The way things are muddled now who knows what's in store for all of us down the line. And with the great sage-like advise I got recently I know that all this bullshit (if it doesn't break me) is going to build character. Hell, it already has. But I'll just keep my head up (regardless of dragging my feet) because I'm pretty damn curious.

Thanks for listening.

Wax is melting down the edge
And darkness is drawing nigh
Sulfur scorches my blistered hands
This is when demons fly

Velvet shadows drape the walls
They're slowly folding in
Solitude is my only friend
But the friendship's running thin

Glass is dimming behind the shade
And darkness is drawing nigh
Filaments sing their last good song
This is when demons fly

Wooden hands intrude the view
Gnarled and twisted they call
Scratching and tapping ever so softly
Beckoning me to fall

Crackling fades to a whisper
And darkness is drawing nigh
Embers dull to soot and ash
This is when demons fly

Crimson trees branch my eyes
Whites are red instead
Weighing down my consciousness
Slowly I droop my head

Lids are down, sheets are up
Please sleep before I die
My only chance until tomorrow
The demons are flying high

(C) 2006 T. Greg Pepper - BITCHES!!

Hey, how's everyone doing?

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold...




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The last final of the quarter. Now to bask in my own apathy and indifference for the next three whole weeks.

So the senate rejected the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and thank God. At a time where our presidents approval rating is at a record low, our country is submerged in the turmoil of war, gas prices are at a record high and oil companies are making record profits shouldn't we be worried about people of the same sex getting married? I think so.

But besides all that, what really bothers me, what really, reeeaaaaallly bothers me, is all the rewording and jumping around the gov't and society is doing. Protecting the sanctity of marriage? Give me a fucking break. In a country where 50% of all marriages end in divorce and we watch shows like The Bachelor and Who Wants to Marry a Midget? I refuse to believe that marriage is a sacred bond anymore. People laugh at marriage. You want to protect the sanctity of marriage, President Bush? Then ban marriage of the people who are actually trying to destroy it. That's right, ban CELEBRITY marriage. We idolize people that get married in the spot light because they get knocked up and a baby can't come from thin air. They get married and get the public's attention and promote they're new movie or album or what-thefuck-ever. Then when people don't care anymore, they break up to suck the last bit of attention out of the relationship. It's fucking sick. It literally nauseates me. And what's even worse are the people who buy all this shit up. People that can't miss an episode of that "all-new" reality show or people that Fandango movie tickets a month in advance or people that actually buy supermarket tabloids because they put a really unflattering picture (that was no-doubt photoshopped in some way) of their fav celebrity on the cover. The very same people that bought the pics of "Brangelina's" baby they auctioned off. Get you're own fucking lives, people.

In conclusion, stop worshiping celebrities lives, they make movies and albums, that's what you should like about them. And Mr. Bush, get a fucking thesaurus because "protecting the sanctity of marriage" is right under homophobia.

My neighbor Kevin called me last night at 1:30 in the morning with a quest. He tells me at 3 AM we're moving his bunny, Lola, from his room on the 9th floor to his old, empty room on the 2nd floor because he has inspection today and, of course, we're not allowed to have pets. Why 3 in the morning? Less of a chance of running into an RA, which is more difficult than it sounds considering that one of the RAs is his roommate. Yes, I said, I laugh in the face of danger. Ha ha ha, ha ha, ha ha ha.

It sounded easy, but I didn't end up in bed until 5. However, the mission was a complete success. Chalk one up for the good guys.

Everthing dies. There are no exceptions. Nope. There's no asterisk at the end of that statement. Everyone and everything dies. Nothing lasts. People die, flowers wilt, couples divorce, bands break up, experiments fail, ideas are forgotten, species become extinct, planets burn, suns explode, tires go flat, pets get run over, food spoils, friendships disintigrate, jobs are lost, pencils go dull, colors fade, and I am 100% certain that this universe is going to collapse into itself.

I am going to die. You are going to die. And I am absolutely, positively fine with that.

What's next?

You wanna know what I did on my birthday?

Laundry.

Yeah, that exciting. And during the car ride back to Philly with my mom I wanted to shoot myself in the face. She told me her and Jack can't live together anymore and she can't afford to keep the house by herself. So she's giving him the boot so she can see some other guy and she's selling the house. On top of all that, my fuck-up of a brother is in jail. I was dead on, my birthday was fucking GREAT.

At least I had the season finale of Prison Break to look forward too. Check this, I get back to Philly about ten minutes before it starts and the FUCKING PRESIDENT COMES ON. He only spoke for about twenty minutes or so and they started the show from the beginning, but for that span of time I was ready to pull the trigger.

From all the P-Break fans, I want to hear a Hell Yeah for T-Bag getting his fucking hand chopped off. That totally made up for the shitty birthday.

It's 9 in the morning, I havn't slept in almost 24 hours, I'm an hour late to class,...I might have a quiz...

It was so worth it.

My roomate took me to a club in DC for my birthday. Best birthday I've had in awhile. Party-wise at least.

Gotta get to class... \\// peace...