SIXTEEN The Left-Hand Path [Intro: Spoken, low and controlled] SIXTEEN. Fifteen. The Devil. Sixteen. The Tower. Imprisonment. Destruction. Interesting. [Verse 1] Got sixteen days remaining, got a calendar and pen, Been studying the occult, started digging in again. Wasn’t looking for an answer, wasn’t searching for a sign, Just another piece of history occupying my time. Found the Devil on the fifteenth, saw the shackles at his feet, Two figures underneath him, both restrained but looking free. Read about the chains of bondage, how the mind becomes confined, How a prison isn’t always made of concrete by design. Turned the page and found the Tower, number sixteen sitting there, Lightning splitting through the structure, bodies falling through the air. Read destruction, read upheaval, read the breaking of control, Then I noticed older names associated with its role. House of Devil, House of Damned, some referred to it as Hell, Had to sit with that a minute, wasn’t much that I could tell. Looked across the cell in silence, put the papers to the side, Sixteen days until the date the state decided I should die. [Hook: Low, repetitive, hypnotic] Fifteen, chains. Sixteen, stone. Sixteen nights, Then I’m gone. Devil bound. Tower fell. Sixteen days. Time will tell. [Verse 2] Didn’t take it as a message, didn’t call it destiny, Just a strange coincidence in what the numbers seem to mean. Fifteen’s sitting on the Devil, sixteen’s sitting on the fall, And I’m sitting in a prison counting scratches on the wall. Got a sentence from a judge, got a number for a name, Got a date upon a document that isn’t gonna change. I ain’t claiming cards predict it, I ain’t saying something knows, But the timing got me thinking how these old traditions grow. Left-hand path, self-determination, walking outside sacred law, Not a promise of salvation, just the questions that it draws. Death ain’t something I can study from a comfortable distance now, It’s a scheduled conversation and I’m learning about how. I been reading through the symbols, trying not to make them facts, Every meaning has a history, every story has its cracks. Still the image of that Tower seems familiar in a way, Not because it knows my future, but because I know the date. [Hook: Restrained, deep chant] Fifteen, chains. Sixteen, stone. Sixteen nights, Then I’m gone. Devil bound. Tower fell. Sixteen days. Time will tell. [Verse 3] Sixteen days remaining if they don’t change the plan, Funny how they call it justice when it’s written by a man. Got the book beside the mattress, got the paperwork beneath, Got the number sixteen circling the question of belief. I don’t need to see a demon, don’t need voices in the room, Don’t need candles or an altar to acknowledge what’s assumed. There’s a system, there’s a sentence, there’s a process and a date, There’s a clock above the doorway, there’s a man who holds the keys. And the Devil wears a number, and the Tower wears the next, And the two of them together form a sequence in the text. I can see why people find a deeper meaning in the signs, When a number on a card resembles something in their lives. But I ain’t reached a revelation, Just a prisoner with a book and an unusual observation. Put a bookmark on the Tower, closed the cover, killed the light, Sixteen days until the ending. Nothing’s changed except the way I see the time. [Outro: Spoken quietly] Fifteen was the Devil. Sixteen was the Tower. That’s what the book says. My paperwork says sixteen days. Sixteen.
