Yes, the song is long. I didn't make it for the radio. I made it for myself. To challenge myself and learn. Not to worry, there won't be many of these. They take waaaaaaaaay too much work. Probably close to 100 hours (yes, really). I made 6 full different versions before being satisfied with it. And the writing took forever, too. If you come here for the art and like metal, you might enjoy this one as much as I do. It's not perfect, but I am getting closer. Otherwise, see you in the next one! It's all good. === He signed the paper with clean hands Still smelling of soap and home They gave him a uniform that fit like purpose Told him the soil would remember his name The first nights he slept like a man who believed The map was honest That he’d return one day with glory and fame Then the ground opened its mouth Flesh learns faster than doctrine A boy’s throat becomes a wet red question Steam rising off a body that still tries to stand He watched the light leave eyes that looked like his own He looked in horror as red stained his hands And felt something crawl behind his ribs That never learned how to leave Someone else’s blood They sent the young ones forward While the ones who spoke of glory Counted ledgers behind glass The price is always paid In someone else’s blood Reflecting differences in class He came back walking That was the first lie they let him keep Medals hang against a chest that no longer belongs to him The metal is cold The applause is colder They call him hero in rooms that smell of polished wood While he counts the faces that surface when the lights grow dimmer He washes his hands until it split his skin The water never runs clear enough To rid him of all his sins His hands always showing Someone else’s blood At night the battlefield rearranges the furniture A corridor becomes a trench A ceiling fan becomes rotor blades A chair becomes a war bench He wakes with the taste of copper and the certainty That something is still moving under the floorboards of his mind Always crawling undetected, yet knowing it's there But invisible as if he was blind He tried the bottle He tried the needle He tried the soft silence of empty rooms Nothing unhooks the parasite that learned his name In the mud They keep the thrones They keep the offices with the high windows They keep the language of necessity He keeps the weight as if mercury Filled his blood He keeps the nightmares He keeps the endless sight of... Someone else’s blood In the end the war did not end It simply changed address It lives between his breath and the next one In the way his hands refuse to stay still In the private knowledge that the man who left Never finished the journey home The price of greed is not written in speeches It is written in the body that continues breathing Long after the reason for breathing Has been spent Long after the reason for living Has been spilled with Someone else’s blood
