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Shelby Bates May 2012
I had a dream last night.



I dreamt of brick walls and chocolate milkshakes.

Of girls with carmel colored skin, and old houses with steep roofs. 

Of tired eyes and bomb threats.

Of children's toys and escape artists. 

Of rainy days and draining exhaustion.

Of hot emotions and a quiet happiness. 



I had a dream last night,



But I don’t know what I dreamt about.
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
Have you ever walked down the street, on a calm summer day, and looked at the sky?
At the perfect, even blueness of it all. The carefully planned haphazard precision of the clouds?

Have you ever stared, and thought,
What if it wasn't real?


What if it was a canvas painting. A marvelous painting thrown down in a fit of  artistic rage onto a little doll set.
Our doll set.

Us.
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
It's February 14, at 5 in the afternoon
And I'm sick.
Sick to my stomach; lagoons of acid loom in the foreground.
Sick in my legs; jello laced with electric jolts trying to break free.
Sick up in my head; my pulse pounds so loud everything else is gone.
It's just that relentless, frantic drum.
ThumpthumpTHUMPthumpthump.


The overwhelming desire to curl up in a shaking ball, to squeeze the illness all away, is nearly impossible to ignore.

It takes the strength of a old world deity to remain intact.
To hold the phone.
To keep my voice from shaking.

As I talk to you.
As I soothe your pain.
As I fix your problems.

Those problems that are my own, in a perverse mime cry.
Yet I can't say a word about my demons to you.
Why?
Because my demons have your name printed on their grey brows.
And that simply wouldn't do, now would it?

It's February 14, at 5 in the afternoon
And I'm sick.
Sick to my stomach; lagoons of acid loom in the foreground.
Sick in my legs; jello laced with electric jolts trying to break free.
Sick up in my head; my pulse pounds so loud everything else is gone.
It's just that relentless, frantic drum.
ThumpthumpTHUMPthumpthump.

But I do my best not to show it.
And you believe my farce.

I guess now thats all thats left to say is;

Happy Valentines day, dear.
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
Sweaters and hugs are sisters.

Underrated, everyday, and simple.
But somehow
Warm, comforting, loving.
A classic.
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
Insomnia had come knocking.
Insomnia is a Southerner, a belle who's smooth words and honied utterances trapped me in her company.

I was laying swathed in sheets, attempting to persuade Miss. Sleepless Night to call on some other hapless soul. Upon realizing a lost cause, I turned to the walls that had become my entertainment on evenings such as this.
Blobs of ink twisted into ribbons, which lopped into figures who jived and waltzed through the room.
They flirted, they fought, they played hide and seek like children, delighting with seemingly spontaneity.

But the charm was gone tonight.

The walls replayed the same stories, the same wispy characters mingling with the same friends.
It was like a over used recored, beloved, but dull.

I teetered on the verge of exhausted tears, why couldn't that wrenched ghost let me shut my eyes, and sleep?

What was sleep anyways? Was it really just a biological means of repair, of converting the day into data?
Or was it something more then that?
Was it a spirt of some higher being, the avatar of it's loving side?
The peace bringer, the soother, the safe guard from troubles.

If there was such a thing, I'd like to shake it's hand, I mused, and offer it a life long customer, and a desperate one at that.

Something stopped me though, half way through my theoretical business deal.
It was the jolt of surprise that coursed through Insomnia's veins. The kind of surprise that only occurs when your convinced you've got something snug in your grasp, and ****.
It's slipped away.

There was a new shadow on the wall, a shadow that all the other inky dancers respected highly. You could tell by the slight bow of their nebulous heads, and the atmosphere of admiration.

I propped myself up against downy pillows, not quite believing what I was seeing.
This cloud like creature was winding it's way across the ceiling, a deep grey mass. Paralyzed by it's presence, I gaped as it stopped right in front of me.
It looked like liquid smoke, with two gleaming wings and twin small, delicately curved horns, wrapped in a light breeze. It had no mouth, but owl like eyes, bright with deep, calming wisdom.

The moment this otherworldly being looked at me, I immediately felt a sense of relief. Insomnia was being called away, she had to pack up her sticky invitations and leave.  HE had told her to mind her own troubles, and she didn't want to meddle with the boss man, now did she?
A discontented huff, and that was all that remained of my genteel personal demon.

It appeared that was the end of the winged sprites visit too, for he was nowhere to be found.

Not that I searched too hard.
I, finally, fell into the Land of Nod.
Shelby Bates May 2012
"These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
And, like the baseless fabric of vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with sleep."

-Shakespeare, the perpetual source of inspiration.
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
In the good book, theres a heaven and a hell.
Theres also limbo.
Purgatory.
Oblivion.
Siberia, for the more literal minded.

Siberia...
Siberia?

Wouldn't the Earths gifts pale in comparison to whatever golden higher realm there may be?
Wouldn't the Earths miseries shrivel into mere nuisances compared to tortured dwelling?

Wouldn't the Earth therefore be...
Middle ground?
Siberia?
Oblivion?
Purgatory?
...
Limbo?
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
A warm dark rectangle.
That was what it was after all. A long toasty box, filled with rows of seats; all with a certain air of weariness about them. Covered in a thick crinkled heather grey material, they seemed to be begging silently for a kind of companionship.
Despite the silent, tired interior, the exterior was jumping, vivid, and fake. Bands of glowing neon twisted their way across the structure, globes of red light sliced through the dawns inky chill. This gaudy shell sped across barren city roads, quiet as a snake. As it slid into view, it's waiting passengers hoisted their heavy packs, and waited for their dazzled, stricken vision to return.
With a hiss, the double doors of the bus opened and the travelers mounted the dull metal steps, and deposited themselves into designated seats. Frigid and sleepy, neighbors attempted stilted conversation. Once the necessary social obligations where filled, they relapsed into a sort of semi conscious coma.
Maybe it was 10 minutes, Maybe it was 10 hours later. There is no sense of time on the bus. Just a cloying fog of heat and drowsiness. Whatever the moments had been, the passengers knew that their time to face the day had arrived. Gliding in front of the brick and glass monument to conformity, the doors opened, and the brave souls onboard filed out.
As they entered the building, the seats sighed. They missed the travelers. Carbon copies, possibly, but people all the same. And when your lonely, nothing is more desired then a human touch. 


"Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place."
~Tecumseh
Shelby Bates Feb 2012
Children's crude drawings adorn my journal.
I like it better that way.

Adolescents reek with self possession, **** sure beyond measure.

Adults are weary of such foolishness, theres more important things to do.

But children, children just don't care.
They couldn't mind less about others thoughts.
They don't worry about whats to be done in Two weeks.
They relish now.

Thats why I prefer children's doodles on my journals.
They inspire me to be more child like.

— The End —