It was nice of my father to say my boyfriend was “swell.” I thought it was a compliment but due to its age and my father’s snarl, I’m beginning to think his “swell” was laced with sarcasm. In fact, I would have believed anything my father said about my boyfriend except that word. Swell. It’s so dated–moreso than my father. He wanted me to know he didn’t like him. As if I didn’t know that already. I was breaking his rules by dating. “No dating until you’re 45 and infertile.” My father was not a doctor. I always joked about having menopause babies. I bet he’d call them swell, too.
Kaitlyn
feeling great, i feel really great. its been quiet a long time since i’ve felt ‘swell’. I cant help but remember your lips and the way they looked so delicious to me. I cant help but feel sad sometimes but then i go through this momentary happiness spurt, and feel like this is what it was meant to be.
sophia
i’m just swell. fine and dandy. nothing is terrible, or aching, or tearing. i am not chewing off my finger nails to keep from digging them into my arms. i am not trying to drown myself in silence.
i’m fucking swell.
Jarrah
i was having a swell day. a swell day that is until he came along. and mind you this was no ordinary gentleman this was a kind of man that when he walked past you if you didn’t get out of his way it would give you shivers down your spine. it made you feel slimy. you knew he was no good but you didn’t know why. he had a smile the looked like the devil and a pair of eyes sunk further than an old war ship. he wore a coat that looked like it was made from something dead. and mind you i don’t mean something like leather where it is processed i just mean dead. it looked like he killed it skinned it and wore it. his name was cross and he killed people, but what gave you the shiver even though you didn’t know was that he enjoyed it so very much. i tell you this not trying to scare you or anything just to let you know what kind of man he was. if he could get away with it–even if he had to run a bit to get away with it he would do it so long as he thought it wouldn’t ruin the mission. That was what was most important to all of us. we were the company’s arms and legs though no one knew about us.
One night. A stormy night. I was having a swell time with the usual crew of the evening. It was getting my flashy and decided to investigate. It was my neighbour clicking her flashlight on and off.
Oh that’s just great, just dandy. It’s as big as a cantaloupe and I can’t feel my fingers. What’s that? No, of course not, I’m not dumb. All I did was accidentally hit it with a hammer and then it just swelled up. I know, just swell.
I had a swell time at the beach today. It was fun and mesmerizing and most of all, I had you there by my side. I will never forget that time we went to the beach and all we did was cuddle along the shoreline.
Julian
The swelling waves beckoned her in but she also sensed their underlying threat.
Pounding, colour coding beats and trickling jittery chimes
I love you, I love you, I love you
Bouncing, isolating, feverish swell, glide and slide and mercury melt
I love you, I love you
Sway, globules of ocean and windbursts of flame, incubating murmurs of dreams
I love you
Well that’s just swell. There was no way I was getting out of the snow that night. I’d neglected the chains and now I was stuck on the mountain. And I could hear the wolves. Just swell.
Everything was swell he said.
I’m not sure if I believed him.
He always lied
(Not that he was any good)
I could tell what was wrong from one text.
But today, I couldn’t deal
So I let his lie pass by.
He was gone
and so was I
Rylee
A gasp ran passed his lips as the swell of the sea engulfed his head. Up, down, left, right. He couldn’t distinguish that from anything else. His hands swiped furiously at water, suffocating him, filling his lungs. The water was red.
He opened his mouth to scream and got a mouthful of metallic. Blood.
overlordy
The waves rolled against the hull with a limpid cadence, he thought, feeling the voluptuous rhythm rock the deck beneath him. He lay his head against the wall, listening to the steady thrumming of the swell. Water was the planet’s blood, he was sure of it, and the tides a heartbeat.
Well, it was just swell. He was stuck babysitting his little sister instead of going out with his previously authenticated date with the most popular girl in his school. Now, he’d be known as the guy who turned down Vanessa Sugar to go change diapers for a couple of hours and spend the night watching Saturday Night Live, drowning his misery in lots of popcorn.
Becky Vargas
Jerry was a swell guy. I know, no one uses that word anymore… but for Jerry – well, it fit. Yessir, he was the kind of guy that everyone liked but nobody loved.
mike
jame’s, well he didnt feel so swell cause his cats fell into a well and he couldnt tell why the hell his aunt Belle wanted to shell out the money for dog food.
Heven Blickest
My heart swells as I look around myself. All the things I see everyday but this time with color. Things aren’t what they used to be, I can see everything, feel the textures, breathe the scent. But only for a moment. I have this moment of clarity until everything goes back to normal. Everything is gray, and I’m suffocating with every breath. I hold something but feel nothing between my fingers. I grasp your arm and close my eyes trying to come back. To the world where everything’s colorful and nothing ever hurts. But it’s too late. It’s gone, and I’m hollow again.
The waves swell and rise in the ocean. The scent of the water poured off into the air around. I stared into the night sky, looking, wondering, helpless and hopeless. Where was I going? What was I doing? I don’t know, all I know what that I was hurt.
The swell at the beach was huge and menacing, the waves crashing down, the noises scratching against my ears as my vision faded to black. This wasn’t a bad way to go, I thought to myself. There could be worse. There were always worse things than floating to the bottom of the ocean I’d grown up on. Strangely symbolic, to die in the only place you’d felt like you’d lived.
tallulah
The night was cold and dark and I was at home. All of the sudden my body started to swell. My mind raced. Was it the food? Was it a bug bite? I had no idea.
jopro
oceans swell in the sea. the white caps crash against the rocky sea wall. salt sprays into the air and dries out your skin. seagulls are flying around, stealing food from people. the sand is warm beneath my feet. its scratchy but feels so soft. the water is cool, not too hot not too cold
Kim
I pulled him close for the first time in a very long time. It felt like God had smiled down on us and the sun came out. I felt our hearts beating to the heat of the passion in our loins and swell to near bursting with love and joy.
Sheila Good
swell is just swell
great
content
everything is swell
all is good
life is good
love is good
i am swell how are you
let us be swell together
strangers to friends
friends to best friends
a life-long relationship
Michaela Juhn
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something swell so much in such a short amount of time. His face is a collage of fantastically-colored bruises, and I watch blood begin to dribble, dark and viscous, between his clutching fingers. It takes me back to another night, years and years ago, spent with another man and another broken nose. Only this time, the man is too afraid to set it without help.
Swell like the ocean, like the waves we used to surf back when we were in highschool and we were cool and everything was precious and it mattered and eerything shimmered ike it was the first time our eyes had ever seen it; yea that was swell.
Alex Niedrach
isn’t the ocean swell? Its smell, and colorful depth. It makes me weep
Shon
“Oh, you know. Just swell.” Sarcasm drips from his words like venom.
Oh my what a swell word. The swell season comes to mind, the swell of the ocean waves. I feel so swell that I can hardly stand it. Not much use for this word these days, but it should come back as with the old 50’s show leave it to Beaver. Gee Beav that’s swell.
The room elapsed and time condensed into a dying thing
It had never been so beautiful
Sitting on the shelf like something great but forgotten
It kissed the air with its fragrant dust and smiled at the end of the world
It echoed through the hearts of the men that loved it
It means to enlarge. Which is fine. But it’s also a positive response to the question, “How are you?”. Well, it was in the olden days anyway. You don’t really hear that response so much these days, unless someone is being ironic or dorky or a hipster. I like that word. I think I’ll use it more often.
Chelsea
As the water swells up against the coast, ferociously crashing into the land over and over again I can’t help but marvel. Even in scenes such as these there is endless fascination in the world around us. When you put your cell phone is your pocket, set the headphones aside, and destroy any of technologies blinders, it is honestly overwhelming how amazing the world is ^^
my heart swells. it grows larger than logic, common sense and “you know better” combined. its swells til its most massive state then pops–leaving my head the responsibility of cleaning up the fathomable mess it leaves behind.
That’s just swell, she said.
I don’t think that’s what you mean to say. I want to help, I do, but you understand right?
Swell, she said. I’ll be fine, you go on.
Can’t you just say what you mean? Is that so hard?
She tosses her hair. She never means well.
Jen
The swell rose, lifting all the boats in the little harbour. I watched the waves crash on the rocks behind the harbour wall, and watched their white manes all the way out to Dalkey island. I was home.
tonykeyesjapan
My heart swells the most when I see you sleeping. All the frustrations I feel throughout the day at listening to you not listening to me, vanish. You are so sweet, cherubic, rosy-cheeked. Lying there innocently, quietly. I sit down beside you, wipe the curls off your brow and kiss you. A part of me hopes that you will wake up just so I can get a real embrace, so you can see that I come every night and give you that special kiss. The other part of me wants you to slumber on, undisturbed.
Courtenay
Tears swell in the eyes and flow out when hearts are pricked by words not meant to harm from the lips of a loved one. Like the sea swell into the shore and goes back into its place, let grieve return to its place of stay – let it stay in forgiveness and let it stay in hope for reconciliation and a future.
The TV’s been on for hours, even though I’ve long since passed out on the couch. The programming continues into the late hours, reruns of old black and white shows, syndicated and televised for the benefit of old geezers who can’t sleep anymore. Andy Griffith continues his eternal summer. The 1950s last forever in those old tapes. The pedantic vocabulary of a God fearing people worms its way into my fitful dreams.
It was nice of my father to say my boyfriend was “swell.” I thought it was a compliment but due to its age and my father’s snarl, I’m beginning to think his “swell” was laced with sarcasm. In fact, I would have believed anything my father said about my boyfriend except that word. Swell. It’s so dated–moreso than my father. He wanted me to know he didn’t like him. As if I didn’t know that already. I was breaking his rules by dating. “No dating until you’re 45 and infertile.” My father was not a doctor. I always joked about having menopause babies. I bet he’d call them swell, too.
feeling great, i feel really great. its been quiet a long time since i’ve felt ‘swell’. I cant help but remember your lips and the way they looked so delicious to me. I cant help but feel sad sometimes but then i go through this momentary happiness spurt, and feel like this is what it was meant to be.
i’m just swell. fine and dandy. nothing is terrible, or aching, or tearing. i am not chewing off my finger nails to keep from digging them into my arms. i am not trying to drown myself in silence.
i’m fucking swell.
i was having a swell day. a swell day that is until he came along. and mind you this was no ordinary gentleman this was a kind of man that when he walked past you if you didn’t get out of his way it would give you shivers down your spine. it made you feel slimy. you knew he was no good but you didn’t know why. he had a smile the looked like the devil and a pair of eyes sunk further than an old war ship. he wore a coat that looked like it was made from something dead. and mind you i don’t mean something like leather where it is processed i just mean dead. it looked like he killed it skinned it and wore it. his name was cross and he killed people, but what gave you the shiver even though you didn’t know was that he enjoyed it so very much. i tell you this not trying to scare you or anything just to let you know what kind of man he was. if he could get away with it–even if he had to run a bit to get away with it he would do it so long as he thought it wouldn’t ruin the mission. That was what was most important to all of us. we were the company’s arms and legs though no one knew about us.
One night. A stormy night. I was having a swell time with the usual crew of the evening. It was getting my flashy and decided to investigate. It was my neighbour clicking her flashlight on and off.
Oh that’s just great, just dandy. It’s as big as a cantaloupe and I can’t feel my fingers. What’s that? No, of course not, I’m not dumb. All I did was accidentally hit it with a hammer and then it just swelled up. I know, just swell.
I had a swell time at the beach today. It was fun and mesmerizing and most of all, I had you there by my side. I will never forget that time we went to the beach and all we did was cuddle along the shoreline.
The swelling waves beckoned her in but she also sensed their underlying threat.
Pounding, colour coding beats and trickling jittery chimes
I love you, I love you, I love you
Bouncing, isolating, feverish swell, glide and slide and mercury melt
I love you, I love you
Sway, globules of ocean and windbursts of flame, incubating murmurs of dreams
I love you
Well that’s just swell. There was no way I was getting out of the snow that night. I’d neglected the chains and now I was stuck on the mountain. And I could hear the wolves. Just swell.
Everything was swell he said.
I’m not sure if I believed him.
He always lied
(Not that he was any good)
I could tell what was wrong from one text.
But today, I couldn’t deal
So I let his lie pass by.
He was gone
and so was I
A gasp ran passed his lips as the swell of the sea engulfed his head. Up, down, left, right. He couldn’t distinguish that from anything else. His hands swiped furiously at water, suffocating him, filling his lungs. The water was red.
He opened his mouth to scream and got a mouthful of metallic. Blood.
The waves rolled against the hull with a limpid cadence, he thought, feeling the voluptuous rhythm rock the deck beneath him. He lay his head against the wall, listening to the steady thrumming of the swell. Water was the planet’s blood, he was sure of it, and the tides a heartbeat.
Well, it was just swell. He was stuck babysitting his little sister instead of going out with his previously authenticated date with the most popular girl in his school. Now, he’d be known as the guy who turned down Vanessa Sugar to go change diapers for a couple of hours and spend the night watching Saturday Night Live, drowning his misery in lots of popcorn.
Jerry was a swell guy. I know, no one uses that word anymore… but for Jerry – well, it fit. Yessir, he was the kind of guy that everyone liked but nobody loved.
jame’s, well he didnt feel so swell cause his cats fell into a well and he couldnt tell why the hell his aunt Belle wanted to shell out the money for dog food.
My heart swells as I look around myself. All the things I see everyday but this time with color. Things aren’t what they used to be, I can see everything, feel the textures, breathe the scent. But only for a moment. I have this moment of clarity until everything goes back to normal. Everything is gray, and I’m suffocating with every breath. I hold something but feel nothing between my fingers. I grasp your arm and close my eyes trying to come back. To the world where everything’s colorful and nothing ever hurts. But it’s too late. It’s gone, and I’m hollow again.
The waves swell and rise in the ocean. The scent of the water poured off into the air around. I stared into the night sky, looking, wondering, helpless and hopeless. Where was I going? What was I doing? I don’t know, all I know what that I was hurt.
The swell at the beach was huge and menacing, the waves crashing down, the noises scratching against my ears as my vision faded to black. This wasn’t a bad way to go, I thought to myself. There could be worse. There were always worse things than floating to the bottom of the ocean I’d grown up on. Strangely symbolic, to die in the only place you’d felt like you’d lived.
The night was cold and dark and I was at home. All of the sudden my body started to swell. My mind raced. Was it the food? Was it a bug bite? I had no idea.
oceans swell in the sea. the white caps crash against the rocky sea wall. salt sprays into the air and dries out your skin. seagulls are flying around, stealing food from people. the sand is warm beneath my feet. its scratchy but feels so soft. the water is cool, not too hot not too cold
I pulled him close for the first time in a very long time. It felt like God had smiled down on us and the sun came out. I felt our hearts beating to the heat of the passion in our loins and swell to near bursting with love and joy.
swell is just swell
great
content
everything is swell
all is good
life is good
love is good
i am swell how are you
let us be swell together
strangers to friends
friends to best friends
a life-long relationship
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something swell so much in such a short amount of time. His face is a collage of fantastically-colored bruises, and I watch blood begin to dribble, dark and viscous, between his clutching fingers. It takes me back to another night, years and years ago, spent with another man and another broken nose. Only this time, the man is too afraid to set it without help.
Swell like the ocean, like the waves we used to surf back when we were in highschool and we were cool and everything was precious and it mattered and eerything shimmered ike it was the first time our eyes had ever seen it; yea that was swell.
isn’t the ocean swell? Its smell, and colorful depth. It makes me weep
“Oh, you know. Just swell.” Sarcasm drips from his words like venom.
Oh my what a swell word. The swell season comes to mind, the swell of the ocean waves. I feel so swell that I can hardly stand it. Not much use for this word these days, but it should come back as with the old 50’s show leave it to Beaver. Gee Beav that’s swell.
Swell like the waves.
The room elapsed and time condensed into a dying thing
It had never been so beautiful
Sitting on the shelf like something great but forgotten
It kissed the air with its fragrant dust and smiled at the end of the world
It echoed through the hearts of the men that loved it
It means to enlarge. Which is fine. But it’s also a positive response to the question, “How are you?”. Well, it was in the olden days anyway. You don’t really hear that response so much these days, unless someone is being ironic or dorky or a hipster. I like that word. I think I’ll use it more often.
As the water swells up against the coast, ferociously crashing into the land over and over again I can’t help but marvel. Even in scenes such as these there is endless fascination in the world around us. When you put your cell phone is your pocket, set the headphones aside, and destroy any of technologies blinders, it is honestly overwhelming how amazing the world is ^^
my heart swells. it grows larger than logic, common sense and “you know better” combined. its swells til its most massive state then pops–leaving my head the responsibility of cleaning up the fathomable mess it leaves behind.
That’s just swell, she said.
I don’t think that’s what you mean to say. I want to help, I do, but you understand right?
Swell, she said. I’ll be fine, you go on.
Can’t you just say what you mean? Is that so hard?
She tosses her hair. She never means well.
The swell rose, lifting all the boats in the little harbour. I watched the waves crash on the rocks behind the harbour wall, and watched their white manes all the way out to Dalkey island. I was home.
My heart swells the most when I see you sleeping. All the frustrations I feel throughout the day at listening to you not listening to me, vanish. You are so sweet, cherubic, rosy-cheeked. Lying there innocently, quietly. I sit down beside you, wipe the curls off your brow and kiss you. A part of me hopes that you will wake up just so I can get a real embrace, so you can see that I come every night and give you that special kiss. The other part of me wants you to slumber on, undisturbed.
Tears swell in the eyes and flow out when hearts are pricked by words not meant to harm from the lips of a loved one. Like the sea swell into the shore and goes back into its place, let grieve return to its place of stay – let it stay in forgiveness and let it stay in hope for reconciliation and a future.
Very swell you are.. Sitting there, listening, not saying a word. It kills me that your silence takes the best of this conversation.
The TV’s been on for hours, even though I’ve long since passed out on the couch. The programming continues into the late hours, reruns of old black and white shows, syndicated and televised for the benefit of old geezers who can’t sleep anymore. Andy Griffith continues his eternal summer. The 1950s last forever in those old tapes. The pedantic vocabulary of a God fearing people worms its way into my fitful dreams.
Overflowing, they tried to scoop up armloads of water and shove them back into the plugged up sink.