Who's Ever Going To Read This Anyway

I walked in to work and asked a co-worker of mine for a word to get my 10 mins of writing done for the day. I only got about 8 but it was a good 8 mins for me.

Floating, falling, soaring, tumbling, the wind’s hands grab and throw the beautiful creature through the sky. With a small, insignificant twitch of a single feather the direction changes course. Tossing beautiful aerobatics into motion. All the world below like a static, stoic statue underneath it. Miles fly by in seconds, altitude changes in the blink of an eye. I yearn for the freedom and grace. The carefree splendor of a creature alone in his world of the open blue. Jealously I watch him paint the sky with his tail. his ease mocks me as I sit waiting to go into work. I won’t have the fresh air and sunlight. The sound, the ability to sing to my heart’s content. Instead I’m like the domesticated version. Grounded forever, my wings clipped, locked in a cage, society’s cage for me. With toys and mirror that don’t hold my attention. I pine for the sweet taste of freedom that will never come.

I got my advance copy of All Time Low’s new CD, “Nothing Personal.” It came with a T-shirt and a poster. The marketing was funny. At Bamboozle Left, and Warped Tour there are posters insulting the poppy emo kids who listen to them with the tagline “Nothing Personal” at the end of it. Even the T-shirt said “@alltimelow Your New Album Sucks- Nothing Personal.” And while I commend them on dissing their own album (something I’ve always wanted to use as a marketing strategy) the painful thing is that for the most part, it’s correct.
I said FOR THE MOST PART, calm down! I love ATL. They’ve been a part of 2 of the BEST concerts in my life. But this album is considerably lacking in some serious All Time Low action. While there are some good songs like the All American Reject-ish “Break Your Little Heart,” that shows some maturity in style, as does “Stella,” which would have been the best song without the techno CD track scratch near the end, only a few songs really sounded like All Time Low.
I’m not talking the “So Wrong It’s Right” All Time Low. I’m talking the “Put Up or Shut Up” All Time Low. That seven song EP was easily their best effort. Which is kinda sad at this juncture in a career. But back to the new CD.
I was about to give up on the CD when I was smacked in the face with the last three songs. After “Walls” had me wondering why Kelly Clarkson wasn’t singing and “Too Much” had me thinking they used TOO MUCH drum machines throughout the whole album “Keep The Change, You Filthy Animal” and “A Party Song (The Walk of Shame)” saved the day. Finally! I screamed. Some music with SOME kinda edge, hearkening back to “Jasey Rae” and “Six Feet Under The Stars”. That’s the All Time Low I know and love- I was wondering where the guitars and real drums were. Finishing strongly with the most beautiful song (Yes, even better than “Lullabies” and “Remembering Sunday”) “Therapy” was great. Alex sounded gorgeous with the back up harmonies and the simplistic guitar really focused Alex’s voice, it pulls you in. Great Job.
Some songs like “Lost in Stereo” was (to quote the song) “just like cellophane” and got LOST IN the album. “Sick Little Games” didn’t live up to it’s 7th song spot at all. Maybe some re-arranging of the songs (let’s not put all the good stuff at the end) would make it a better organized, easier flowing project. I’m probably going to adopt four of the songs into my playlists but all in all, I wasn’t exactly impressed.
I find it funny that All Time Low cusses up a blue streak and pretends to be the Next Blink 182 with dick and gay jokes on stage at concerts, come out with such a soft record and name it “Nothing Personal.” With the insulting marketing I was looking forward to a more in your face album “Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t)” had the lyrics just not the attitude needed to live up to the title of the album.
If you love ATL, pick it up. You gotta. But if you don’t know who they are, go get “Put Up or Shut Up” and just see if you like that. Don’t let this album ruin your opinion of a good band.- Nothing Personal.

This is a poem I found the other day looking through some boxes. I’m not saying it’s a gem. No real rhyme scheme and I have no clue when I wrote it but I like it.

It’s 12:37 I bet you’re asleep
I hold my breath through your door I creep
Slowly and shutting the door carefully till
An audible click seals your fate

You don’t even stir as I fill the syringe
I’ll end our live as you ended my dreams
We’ll die together like shakespereian teens

I re-read your text “Let’s just be friends”
And we will, friend’s till the end
Stupid little girl, who are you to hold my heart?
Why I care so much about you, I’ll never know.

As I draw the needle from your neck
I watch the blood run down. I taste it
And load again for me to join you.

You look so peaceful as I enter my vein.
Maybe it’s the chemicals, but
I’ve never been more in love with you
As I lay down next to you I whisper in your ear “I’m sorry.”

I got my friend to try this 10 min exercise with me…. I won’t publish his for reasons untold, but this was mine.

Writing Exercise- Polyester

The satiny, smooth highway my fingers travel across, slipping and sliding around like a drunken ice skater on the freshly zambonied surface, sends a scratching, tingling sensation up my digits. I can hear the ever increasing pitch of the my fingers zipping across the tightly weaved material. This bastardization of clothing, trapping me in, not allowing precious air to touch my skin. I am plastic wrapped inside myself. My faux fabric prison embracing me. I hear my arms rub against my sides, the scratching of an invisible DJ in my head. Thinking back to my holographic baseball cards I rip a little tune against my chest. My brightly colored shirt, held together by white plastic buttons is like a siren in a storm. Calling out. I wish I had a volume knob on this thing. My ears are ringing with the severity of its loudness. My voice is all but a whisper in a tornado of my machine washable, tumble dry only confinement. This torturous material seems to press the sweat against me tighter. Like the t-shirt worn by the fat kid at the pool so he doesn’t feel like everyone is looking at him, my shirt makes me stand out, clinging to my body. A decaying smell of burned fabric tickles my nostrils. How many water bottles were shredded to make my cage?

So my first writing exercise was to write for 10 mins on a topic and stop when the timer went off. The topic was Holding Your Breath and this is what I got:

For the first few seconds, the rush of cold, clean fresh air feels like you can hold it forever. As you stand there, your will binding your lungs holding on tightly to the saving life inside you begins to tremble. The cells of your body, no longer refreshed begin to ache, begging for more. The sweet, smell has left your nostrils and blood surges to your ears. The black ghosts in the corner of your vision encroach upon you, overtaking you. Panic has set in, trembling, shaking, pulsing your heart echoes in your hollow body. The thumping reverberates in your temples. Space begins to spin and time focuses on one second. The clock hands stop moving as the periphery fades. Tiny details, the missing paint chipped off the corner of the wall you never noticed before become so glaringly obvious. Shouting across the room at your. What should be so small and far away is somehow in your face screaming. You can feel air caressing your skin. Air begging to be allowed into your dry, cracking lungs. The stinging in your chest has moved into your ears. You can’t remember if your holding something in- a scream, a cry- or if you are keeping something out. As the sights and sounds blur to one your will breaks, shatters. Air spews forth and is just as quickly replaced. Blood drains from your face and is recirculated through your blood thirsty vampire-like cells. Your muscles drink it in with lust…

Ah, latchkey kids on vacation. She puts her phone back in those pants. I brush my hand across her shoulder and down her arm. She looks at me.
“You had something on you.” I say with a calm, smooth even voice looking deep into her eyes. “And I wanted to take it off.”
Any young girl will tip her hand just like poker players at the table. Only it’s so much sweeter. Like clock work, she swallows, the lips part, her tongue moves to her lips as her pupils dilate. The Cucumber Melon has been covered up by the warm smell of honey, that’d be her pheromones.
She’s mine.

Some friends have read this/ want to read more. I want to see if it’s worth working on. Let me know.

As I make my way down the strip, I can smell women. Girls to be precise. Young, drunk co-eds or fresh high school seniors girls who come here to celebrate graduating, or better yet, stuck here away from their friends on a family vacation. Vacationers are the best, see, in Vegas the family thinks since their sweet sixteen year olds are old enough to saunter through the mall alone they can do the same at the Miracle Mile Shopping Center just outside of the Planet Hollywood Casino (formally the Aladdin.) Well they can saunter all they want. I love them shaking their perfect teenage asses as they walk, laughing, or better yet absent-mindedly texting their friends. Sometimes their boyfriends.
You can always tell when a young woman is communicating with someone they are infatuated with. They smell differently. The release of pheromones sings to me. Similarly to how a dog’s ears perk up, my cock leaps to attention. This young, sweet, innocent, thing in front of me with her expensively faded and tattered yellow shirt, tight black pants and a green thong- don‘t ask me how I know, I can just sense it. As we reach a cross walk, I am surrounded by people. Men telling bad beat stories, women talking about how wasted they are and always that incessant clicking by the Mexicans trying to sell me smut.
What they don’t seem to understand is that I’m already a customer. The prisoner of another beauty in front of me. This one is not on a card, where lonely men can pay money to be screwed in his hotel room instead of at the tables. This young, blonde, pixie in front of me has me infatuated. My instincts have kicked in. I need her.
As the throng of people press me towards the street, my prey has not been paying much attention, thank you Verizon. Unlimited texts are a great way to distract the young and beautiful. I slide my way over to her, and pretend I have been pushed and have accidentally bumped against her. My cock brushes against her ass, just as firm as I could imagine it. I should have put my hand down and felt her tight pants. If you want to call something that skin tight a pant.
She turns to look at me, wide eyed and shocked at my audacity. I smile my patented panty melting smile give her a facial expression as if to ask if these people could be any more rude? She smiles her sweet smile, and returns to texting. I push up against her again as we wait for the red hand to disappear she doesn’t seem bothered by it anymore, knowing that I’m “not doing it on purpose.”
Before the light even turns green, the massive group of people start to cross the street anyway. You’ve got to love the mob mentality of people at a stop light. If you start to cross the street someone will inevitably join you, sending everyone off the corner while the little red hand shine in vain.
My girl, eyes still glued to her phone, follows the group. How I love the impressionable. I tend to hate to follow a group like that. I don’t mind waiting for the green man to show up, but I can’t afford to lose her. She smells of Bath and Body Works’ Cucumber Melon body spray and my mouth begins to water. I allow a few people to filter in between me and my target. As to not be too obvious. After a few block we wind up at the MGM as I follow her into the casino. She walks towards the elevators for her room. I follow her, closing in.
A lot of casinos try to keep people out of the room areas that should not be. Honorable, but it can be a pain. Most of the time they ask for a key card to verify a guest’s stay at the hotel. A simple enough solution, I’ve stayed one night at every hotel on the strip, and I always seem to “lose” my key card. Needless to say my wallet looks like a hotel registry. I have my key card in hand as she stops to pry her key card out of her tight pants. I stop next to her and flash my key card. Smile to the little old lady who’s working the desk area
“She’s with me, Gail.”
“Go on ahead honey.” The old lady says smiling.

In the elevator my prey stands next to me. I touch her hand as if to accidentally reach for the same floor button at the same time. We laugh.
“You must stay here a lot.”
“Why would you think that?” I ask.
“You knew her name.” She looks at me smugly. Damn she’s cute.
“I know everyone’s name.” I state simply and pretend to look disinterested.
“You know don’t mine.” I can tell that she’s warming up to me.
“ I don’t need to.” I smile at her, she pouts playfully. “Besides, it was on her name tag.”
“Oh that’s lame, I thought you were special..” She pushes me slightly with her left hand.
“I’m very special.” I say seriously
“Yeah right.” She rolls her eyes.

We stand in silence for a bit, as I see we are only a few floors away from our floor. As the doors opens and fills the elevator with fresher air I move out of the way to let her go ahead of me. Even though I’m happy to get out of this unventilated tease chamber, it’ll be sad to have her go.
“It’s Clair.” She says.
“What’s Clair?”
“My name.” She says with a laugh.
“Good to know.” I smile back at her with a little wink. And we both laugh.
Her phone goes off in her pocket and she whips it out and opens it quicker than I could blink. Sure, she can get a phone out, but a simple, thin keycard was like trying to remove Excalibur from the stone. I peek over her shoulder, as I pretend to hold the door open, to read her text.

From: Mom
Dad & I r going 2 dinner & show @ Bellagio. B back really late.