H-C

I let the anxiety
and uneasiness
bubble up in my stomach.
It curdled like milk.
I tried to calm down.
Everything is fine. fine. fine.
I poured a beer
a bath
put on a tv show
with the captions
because I decided I couldn't hear.
"I've got to stop doing this"
"I've got to stop"
"I've got to"
Epsom salt piled up at the bottom of the bath
before it could dissolve and I made sure it wasn't
too, too
hot.
Before I sat,
hair piled up on my head, so it wouldn't get wet.
I tried to un-curdle milk.
Which doesn't come easy,
so everyone knows.

6/6/2016
Riley Welch

KB

What a waste.
How many words
fit on each page
before she hits the door.
I don't know who will grab the knob first.

6/3/2016
Riley Welch

Today

I saw your eyes
peeking through two branches on a tree.
Lovely and shining.
If they had been green,
you would have gotten away.
Blending in with the leaves and sometimes, when they're fresh
the tree bark.

5/24/2016
Riley Welch

Nightmares

I had a dream where the world ended,

but it didn’t fall apart,

and nothing went up in flames,

all my favorite restaurants were still open,

and no one I knew or loved was dead.

Everything was almost the same,

except we all knew the world had ended.

I still worked on marketing plans,

I still did my homework in the hours before it was due,

I still planned out with friends which day of the week we’d go out,

I still got annoyed when I knew I was right,

I still kissed my boyfriend and told him he was good,

I still ate like garbage and over-caffeinated and was shocked when I felt like shit,

I still felt guilty when I missed phone calls I knew I could have taken,

I still watched tv and texted my best friend my favorite jokes,

I still scoured Craigslist for cheap jobs I could do on the side,

I still washed my face too much and my hair not enough,

I still waited until I was 3,000 miles over to get an oil change,

I still worried about graduating, and grad school, and work, and money, and family, and friends, and drug use, and drinking, and growing up.

And we were all still endlessly anxious,

Like even without a world we found a way to remain discontent.

And then I woke up, stomach turning in knots over itself.

Reminding myself:

It was a dream.

It was a dream.

It was a dream.

I worried about the metaphoric implications of it,

but no more than I worried about anything else,

and after a few hours,

I forgot the dream altogether.

5/28/2016

Riley Welch

Two, Four

I'm walking in circles

round and round about. 

The foot

in front of the other 

and to the left

or right

depending on the step. 

Dogs keep track of four feet. 

But I can barely keep up with two. 

6/3/2016

Riley Welch

Publication!

Instead of a poem today, I'm posting a link to my first publication!

Coldnoon: Travel Poetics International Journal of Travel Writing recently published a collection of poems I wrote in their online "Diaries" section.

Because this is a journal of travel writing, these are poems I originally wrote on my backpacking trip in Germany a few summers ago. I'm very, very excited this got to be my first publication opportunity!

Check it (and the entire website, because it's pretty cool) out:

Honor of the Giant

8

Curling shadows danced an outline
that I could barely keep track of,
I noticed I repeat when i can't choose the next line,
triplets are so comfortable,
your mouths cannot trip if it knows
exactly what comes next.

5/26/2016
Riley Welch