“Cracked in half with a razor, to crush mindless fools like you,” the shell lay in pieces on the floor of the bathroom.
Near the shell was the body of the Duchess. Detective Miller shook his head and shoved his notepad back into his pocket. He didn’t need notes to know it was him again…
I created it for protection, for coping, for love.
It has been designed to be efficient and give me a semblance of what I want
but I think I lost myself to it, inside it.
We’ve been here before. In this roundabout way, to this cave beneath hell. Or perhaps it’s beneath grace. Where we hide in dark corners, in turns and in shakes. Shells of ourselves, in former places, in the wake of tides to strong and currents too dire. Our turths are
Julia
shell shell came from hell i lives at the bottom of the sea where deep dark monsters loom above it transmitting their dark presence into it. The shell has surfaced on a beach we are doomed.
loz
There it was. Lying between the grains of sand. Shimmering like the stars above. I picked it up and stared at the universe I held between my fingers. Shell.
Adwait
Encompassed by and sheltered into a shell of expectation. Like a tortoise, I retreat into a form that people think more accepting. Creativity and innovation is at my center but I’m closed off by internal barriers of social propriety, tact, society’s “role of the male,” and emotion. Further enclosed by external barriers of form, body, skin tone, orientation and voice. The declaration that I am speaking of something cliche is a shell in and of itself – a barrier of comfort I could behind but a barrier through which I wish to break through. Shell…the layer between the real me and the real you.
She stepped carefully in the sand. The beach was now cold. The sun had gone down hours ago. She tiptoed around the broken shells left by the beach sweepers and eventually got far enough away from the main road that, looking up, the only thing she could see were the stars and the lights of Delaware Bay.
We’ve seen darker timelines than this one, sure. But this might just be the least enjoyable. The ground was acidic; the rain boiled with magma. Clouds gathered overhead were a real hazard. If it weren’t for the great meandering citashell turtle, we’d be done for.
HSS
of myself.
no one to know
no one to see
spiraling out of control
anon
The beach echoed with emptiness; nothing left but the sand and the waves. I wandered forward, dazed, feeling the grit between my toes, wondering where she had gone. I could see for miles in both directions, and nothing could catch my eye. Except… something poked into my foot, making me bleed a little. I pick it up. A small spiral shell, covered in tiny spikes.
HSS
“Babbo!”
Ashley ran up the beahc, small feet scattering sand as she went. She proudly presented her father with a conch shell.
“Ah, what’s this?”
Basilio smiled.
“Sublunars say you can hear the ocean in these, you know. But we,” he said, pressing the shell to her ear, “say you can hear your bondmates in them. Do you hear anything?”
Come out of your shell, they said to her. Speak up child, they said to her. But how? How in this huge, different world was she supposed to leave the cave of her mind and run in the fields of life and thoughts?
i took you out of your heaven
to hear you sing your song,
but all i heard were cries,
you were begging to go home
Lola Krmpotic
Shells make great necklaces and little homes for crabs. I love shells because they reflect so many vivid colors. They also remind me of my childhood, when I would roam the beach and when I enjoyed the beach.
Jessica Collins
time consuming
anjana
Shells on the beach
As I try to reach
Because she sell she shells
And it’s $3.00 for each.
Ilan
I stepped on the splintered edge of a clam shell. Sticky black blood coated my foot and the sand
He holds the scalloped edges of this dead creature’s home and thinks. He thinks of mortality and permanency and possession, but mostly he thinks that this will make a lovely gift for Marie.
I thought about giving my mom a shell for her birthday. That was it. Just a clean, polished, shiny shell – maybe one that had more than one color naturally painted across its ridges. Could have been pure white or splattered golds, purples, and reds. Could have been solid black, like obsidian. Didn’t matter. She would’ve loved it.
My mom always talked about shells. Every hour, on the hour, she’d sit up in her hospital bed, looking out at the beach just outside her window. Begging for a seashell necklace.
Belinda Roddie
Ryou found her washed up in the cove like a shell, sleeping in the cold sand. Something had pulled him, like an ocean current, down the path from his house to the sea. It made him climb down to the cove, scraping his hands and legs on the rocks not yet softened by the sea. He had no idea how she’d gotten there, or why she insisted on following him home.
on a beach. shell beach north of pismo. I’m a shell of myself. shell game.
David
I’ve always loved going to the beach.
I’d always go with my family, and It’d be the highlight of my year.
The cold ocean water would slosh up to where my toes were in the sand, bringing up a shell or two with it.
I’d always kept those shells, and they meant everything to me.
I’d hang them up onto my wall by my bed, coloring the white background with an assortment of blues and reds.
C
I picked up the small, smooth shell on the rocky beach. The waves cascaded over my toes, sending chills up my body. The salty smell of the ocean filled my nostrils, and the gentle sound of waves crashing on the shore filled my ears. It was at this moment that I felt truly free.
When he woke there was a shellinterlaced in his sweatwhirt’s tail. The only thing he himself remembered was changing into purple, and someone he shouldn’t be able to see. Curls… Glistening pain. Cold water. Purple.
"Life"
Sometimes a shell
of former selves
we see our reflection
but it’s distorted
by fragments
not yet put together
remnants of ideas past
of former lives
we lived before
we inhabited this cave
Julia
It was hardening, a crusted over surface with no cracks and little wiggle room. Her heart rate escalated, this could not be happening- It wasn’t… But as her muscles found more and more restraint, she realized the reality of her fate.
The shell, smooth, without crack or defect on it’s outer surface, completely encompassed her. With one final breath, she stood still.
“Cracked in half with a razor, to crush mindless fools like you,” the shell lay in pieces on the floor of the bathroom.
Near the shell was the body of the Duchess. Detective Miller shook his head and shoved his notepad back into his pocket. He didn’t need notes to know it was him again…
I created it for protection, for coping, for love.
It has been designed to be efficient and give me a semblance of what I want
but I think I lost myself to it, inside it.
I came out of my shell like it was the most natural thing in the world. And there I was, awake, alive, naked and exposed to the entirety of creation.
It was inspiring.
I was awestruck.
But also, I was dying. Something had struck me in the thigh, in the meat of it in a vein and I was bleeding out.
He was a shell of his former self.
His once radiant blue eyes were dark and listless.
His flaxen hair was wispy and dull.
His porcelain skin had taken on a gray hue.
His hands trembled.
His footsteps dragged.
But no words were spoken.
No one knew when it had started.
No one knew how to make it stop.
We’ve been here before. In this roundabout way, to this cave beneath hell. Or perhaps it’s beneath grace. Where we hide in dark corners, in turns and in shakes. Shells of ourselves, in former places, in the wake of tides to strong and currents too dire. Our turths are
shell shell came from hell i lives at the bottom of the sea where deep dark monsters loom above it transmitting their dark presence into it. The shell has surfaced on a beach we are doomed.
There it was. Lying between the grains of sand. Shimmering like the stars above. I picked it up and stared at the universe I held between my fingers. Shell.
Encompassed by and sheltered into a shell of expectation. Like a tortoise, I retreat into a form that people think more accepting. Creativity and innovation is at my center but I’m closed off by internal barriers of social propriety, tact, society’s “role of the male,” and emotion. Further enclosed by external barriers of form, body, skin tone, orientation and voice. The declaration that I am speaking of something cliche is a shell in and of itself – a barrier of comfort I could behind but a barrier through which I wish to break through. Shell…the layer between the real me and the real you.
She stepped carefully in the sand. The beach was now cold. The sun had gone down hours ago. She tiptoed around the broken shells left by the beach sweepers and eventually got far enough away from the main road that, looking up, the only thing she could see were the stars and the lights of Delaware Bay.
We’ve seen darker timelines than this one, sure. But this might just be the least enjoyable. The ground was acidic; the rain boiled with magma. Clouds gathered overhead were a real hazard. If it weren’t for the great meandering citashell turtle, we’d be done for.
of myself.
no one to know
no one to see
spiraling out of control
The beach echoed with emptiness; nothing left but the sand and the waves. I wandered forward, dazed, feeling the grit between my toes, wondering where she had gone. I could see for miles in both directions, and nothing could catch my eye. Except… something poked into my foot, making me bleed a little. I pick it up. A small spiral shell, covered in tiny spikes.
“Babbo!”
Ashley ran up the beahc, small feet scattering sand as she went. She proudly presented her father with a conch shell.
“Ah, what’s this?”
Basilio smiled.
“Sublunars say you can hear the ocean in these, you know. But we,” he said, pressing the shell to her ear, “say you can hear your bondmates in them. Do you hear anything?”
Shell I stay or Shell I go now? If I leave there will be trouble…if I stay it will be doubled. I just gotta tell you so….u
Sally sells she shells on the sea shore.
The shellfish’s shell is so strong
shellfish is selfish
Are you shellfish or selfish?
Come out of your shell, they said to her. Speak up child, they said to her. But how? How in this huge, different world was she supposed to leave the cave of her mind and run in the fields of life and thoughts?
a thing you find on the beach, at the ocean, peach, white, hard, lines, collect, hiding inside, turtle, come out of, empty, listen, hear the ocean,
If beauty is only skin deep, why do I feel so insecure? Why do i feel like I am not beautiful? I am not good enough.
i leave traces of me,
in everyone i meet,
and by the time you we meet,
ill be just a shell for you to keep
i took you out of your heaven
to hear you sing your song,
but all i heard were cries,
you were begging to go home
Shells make great necklaces and little homes for crabs. I love shells because they reflect so many vivid colors. They also remind me of my childhood, when I would roam the beach and when I enjoyed the beach.
time consuming
Shells on the beach
As I try to reach
Because she sell she shells
And it’s $3.00 for each.
I stepped on the splintered edge of a clam shell. Sticky black blood coated my foot and the sand
He holds the scalloped edges of this dead creature’s home and thinks. He thinks of mortality and permanency and possession, but mostly he thinks that this will make a lovely gift for Marie.
I thought about giving my mom a shell for her birthday. That was it. Just a clean, polished, shiny shell – maybe one that had more than one color naturally painted across its ridges. Could have been pure white or splattered golds, purples, and reds. Could have been solid black, like obsidian. Didn’t matter. She would’ve loved it.
My mom always talked about shells. Every hour, on the hour, she’d sit up in her hospital bed, looking out at the beach just outside her window. Begging for a seashell necklace.
Ryou found her washed up in the cove like a shell, sleeping in the cold sand. Something had pulled him, like an ocean current, down the path from his house to the sea. It made him climb down to the cove, scraping his hands and legs on the rocks not yet softened by the sea. He had no idea how she’d gotten there, or why she insisted on following him home.
on a beach. shell beach north of pismo. I’m a shell of myself. shell game.
I’ve always loved going to the beach.
I’d always go with my family, and It’d be the highlight of my year.
The cold ocean water would slosh up to where my toes were in the sand, bringing up a shell or two with it.
I’d always kept those shells, and they meant everything to me.
I’d hang them up onto my wall by my bed, coloring the white background with an assortment of blues and reds.
I picked up the small, smooth shell on the rocky beach. The waves cascaded over my toes, sending chills up my body. The salty smell of the ocean filled my nostrils, and the gentle sound of waves crashing on the shore filled my ears. It was at this moment that I felt truly free.
When he woke there was a shellinterlaced in his sweatwhirt’s tail. The only thing he himself remembered was changing into purple, and someone he shouldn’t be able to see. Curls… Glistening pain. Cold water. Purple.
Sometimes a shell
of former selves
we see our reflection
but it’s distorted
by fragments
not yet put together
remnants of ideas past
of former lives
we lived before
we inhabited this cave
It was hardening, a crusted over surface with no cracks and little wiggle room. Her heart rate escalated, this could not be happening- It wasn’t… But as her muscles found more and more restraint, she realized the reality of her fate.
The shell, smooth, without crack or defect on it’s outer surface, completely encompassed her. With one final breath, she stood still.
I don´t know it is
I think than
I don´t know it is
Maybe