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