Flooded

And you miss her
And we miss her
Why would you think I forgot
It was different
And
Oh, I know
Haven't you seen
I have the words written
Right here
Dark
Solid
Still cool and raised
If pain is the only thing
That shows us
Absence of pain
Then I believe I have done it
I know the comforting feeling of what I imagine
Is her cool fingertips
Wrapped around me
In a hug
An embrace
And I can guarantee
She is so, so missed.

5/26/2015
Riley Welch

Nights

Thin crispy cookies

And sweet swinging jazz

Pair perfectly

With sparkling wine

In tall clear glasses

Glossed with dots of sweet champagne

And smiling evenings

Where you turn in over and over again circles

Holding the hands of those you love

Spinning and spinning

Wishing the music wouldn’t stop

And you won’t end

And tonight won’t end

And they won’t end

And wishing

That the rest of your memories

Are turned on top of themselves circles

And pitter patter feet

Tripping and dancing

For one more song.

5/26/15

Riley Welch

A Lot of Used Pen Ink

I keep filling up booklets
And feeling accomplished
But I don't really know
What I am accomplishing,
I've written lots of words
But there is so much overlap

I play favorites

Gentle,
Whispered,
Soft,

Repetitious.

What gets accomplished if
I spend my time writing
The same words in different orders?


And I can tell you:

My handwriting has not even improved.

5/14/2015
Riley Welch

Dancing

Braids fell out of their interlocking
The same way
Two snakes would have
Untwisted their bodies
If they fell
from a branch
To the ground.

But once you combed out the hair
It separated into
Delicate strands,

That didn't look like a solid body
Anymore.

Soft ringlets that danced out of her scalp
Long and looping
And particularly charming.

5/18/2015
Riley Welch

26

Last Wednesday, instead of studying for my textiles final like I was supposed to I finished a poem I have been working on for a while. It was a tough one because most of the words in each line start with the same letter. There are 26 lines total, one for each letter of the alphabet, but they are not in alphabetical order.

1. Long loving lilac limbs loom lengthy and lenient
2. Over open opal oceans overflowing.
3. Glistening, gleaming, glowing.
4. Sighing soft sea salt scented splashes,
5. Misting muddled massed mosses,
6. Creeping clustered and close. Clinging to the coasts comfortable core. 
7. Eating endlessly elegant edges of excess Earth.
8. Yelping yellows, yawning and yolky.
9. Jumping junipers jazz juvenilely and jealous
10. Tickling tall tattered turfs tough tops. 
11. Numbing notes name new nobles:
12. Queens quick and quiet,
13. Kings kind kisses...
14. Deep, drifting - depleting demons, drafting dreamers.
15. Royalty's riviera, rough riding rainwaters
16. All about, abundant, but so adequate.
17. Violet viola's only vice are vertical venomous vines,
18. Xanthic and X-ed xylems.
19. Weeping wisterias well with warm water, waiting.
20. Planting precious pedestals, perching and prepping their provenance. 
21. Under undecided untouched underpinning
22. Heavy hands help heave happy homes.
23. Zip-locked and zigzagged, leaving zilch.
24. Beautifully buoyant, bouncy and brilliant - blue brine,
25. Feeling first and fresh, finally free but forceful.
26. In-between iridescent indigo impacts - impassive. 

5/13/2015

Riley Welch

Table 4

I've got wildly tired eyelids
Waiting for that final day
Of each class
Good classes
Good classes I should have done better in
Probably
But sometimes it rains when you schedule a picnic
And sometimes it rains five days straight
And sometimes you make straight B's because you were having too much fun
I haven't got complaints
Except for that hot hot summer
I hate those tiny beads of sweat
On your spinal cord
When you're just trying to enjoy your day.

5/13/2015
Riley Welch

Oil on Linen

Sore aching pitter patter
Of Flittering heart beats
Chins clumsily knocking chins
And while it seems rude
To bump into someone
At night
For just a few minutes
Sometimes
It's exactly what you need
To get on with that life
That won't stop moving
Just because
You asked for a break.

5/11/2015
Riley Welch

4's

Drowning in ounces and ounces
Of caffeinated drip
Suffocating my exhaustion
And forcing red-rimmed
Eyelids lid
Go numb
Stare at the ever
Illuminated computer screen
Five more days
Just five more

5/11/2015
Riley Welch

R

Repetition is so comfortable
And I don't feel bad
I won't leave my comfort zone

I won't sleep in make up
I won't pull all-nighters
That's not what I'm here for
Or even what I want.

I want to stay happy
Be spontaneous - but prepared

And if I am happy.

Who cares.

4/19/2015
Riley Welch

Fill In the Blank

When your lovers name
Becomes a noun
You know

Things are extreme
One way or another

The selflessness
That comes from the thought

"Oh, don't you wish everyone had
had an insert lovers name here "

And even if it fits in a different
Dark
Old
Overwhelming spot.

It's something.

By any scale we've come to develop.

Love can only be categorized
By those
In it.

4/30/2015
Riley Welch

Favorite Fridays

Today's outside author is a friend of mine who very recently got into poetry, but obviously has a serious knack for it. It was hard to choose which poem to post, so you might be seeing more of his work in the future!

BY: ELIJAH MCLAUGHLIN

Summer
You and I are like
Contrasting colors on opposite sides
Of a Popsicle stick
You
Are the strawberry Rocket Red
So sweet, everyone's favorite
The side saved for last so there's time to truly savor it
And I
Am the bizarre bombastic blue
That they always claim is Raspberry but you
Know that color doesn't exist anywhere in Nature
With a flavor that's more accurately described as "loud"
Than savory
And when we meet our demise
At the hands of the blistering heat of this Americana Sunrise
I wanna melt together
Bleed in rivulets and run all over the fingers of our combined childlike nature
Intermingle in a puddle of Nuclear-Waste purple and stain everything a shade
My mother won't approve of
Love
Is a saccharine mess
That tastes best when the colors clash
It is the heat rebounding off the dash
In the car left parked
While a couple of teenagers wander off into the woods together
It is the dirt rising off the backroad
you drive down just to be alone
Just the two of you
It's the abandoned fence overrun with rust
With a gap in it just big enough to fit through
It's that secret spot at the top of the small mountain
Overlooking the whole town
That spot you found
Where the sun crowns the sky in golden light
At the dawn of every day
That spot with the most impressive view of backwoods paradise ever captured
That feeling of rapture
When two opposite ends of the stick sit and watch the Americana Sunrise
And quietly melt together

Too

Falling bricks
Counting
Mile after mile after mile
Brain dead but -

A bus
Or taxi
To take you wherever
You
Actually
Need to be
On time
Too late
Too close
Asleep.

5/5/2015
Riley Welch

Gallons

I get lost in a sea of me
Ideas became
A liquid
And I drowned

I couldn't find a drop in a gallon
In gallons
In gallons and gallons

A friendly homemaker
Uses 80 gallons of water a day
That's 29200 a year

And my brain
Is producing thoughts
At that rate

How do I stay caught up,
Or catch up
Down the drain.

5/1/2015
Riley Welch

6

I've always had strong superstition
Thinking of the things that happened
As always based in a circle
Of giving and taking
And when good things would happen
I would worry it was an accident
And would be taken away
And so
I would keep my best behavior
Until it couldn't be taken away
Like any trip I go on
I fear falling ill
And will drink water
Until I'm bursting to the brim
Subtle worry
Is just more background noise at this point

4/20/2015
Riley Welch