Raise the sails and ready to board

Sharpen your blade and guard the hoard

Warriors true but profit supreme

We are the oceans' honorable thieves

The flag we fly is feared by all

The symbol of freedom for those with the balls

We take what we need and sink what we don't

We have what we want and keep it afloat

Soldiers of fortune out on the seas

Sailors by nature wild and free

We left home broke and came back loaded

Mysterious mariners but unquestioned motives

We are the pirates and privateers

Fueled by waves and landlubbers' tears

Professional thieves with unleashed tongues

We signed our lives to freedom and fun

With iron and blood and smoke and guns

We sail the seas 'til our time is done

Be it by blade or be it by fire

We feel most alive when things become dire

We live on the edge of the wind and the waves

As most of our 'friends' see us as knaves

You know you can't stop the currents and tides

So one might as well learn how to ride

Should you decide to answer the call

You won't find your answer deep in those halls

Find a ship and find your crew

And pray to your gods that we don't find you

See the scars submission has brought me

From all these years of sitting peacefully

Golden stains around these marks

Left by the whips forged to scar

Maim my heart that you may stand tall

The shelter you gave me created to fall

Black and blue, my mind barely crawls

Seeking solace in your false halls

Broken and bleeding, tired and cold

I cannot have what you cannot hold

Why did you do this, keeping me captive?

It was my mistake, the choice to be passive

Let me stand, let me go, let me regain my youth

Spent too long worrying about what is the truth

I did not wish that you would fall down

Upon the sword that you used to take the crown

God what have I done, letting you win

We once fought together against the same sin

Divided we stand, united I fell

All because I was won by your spell

I can only ask once that you remain true

True to the truth that I though we both knew

I thought together we lived by the same code

When you fell broken at my humble abode

I suppose I deserved this, for feeding your needs

For letting you walk through those trees

For thinking that I couldn’t live on my own

Even though I knew you were just after the throne

Submission has brought me here, to these darkened halls

The only life left here just slithers and crawls

So I’ll pick up the crown from your rotted throne

And paint a picture the world deserves to be shown

I don’t expect to live forever

Only as long as the universe lets me

But the day I die before the dawn

Let me have found where I belong

Let my voice be one that was heard

And let my actions be louder than words

I’m sorry to all I cannot reach

I hope my death allows you to speak

Time rages on as we wither away

And history only remembers the pain

Never the silent victories won

The personal battles that overwhelm one

Long forgotten once their part is done

When their story is no longer fun

I don’t expect to live forever

But I hope that maybe by sending one letter

Some one’s story will