You don’t know the grip of vice until it’s a noose around your heart.
Trust me- if it went around the neck,
I wouldn’t have made it this far.
…I’d have made it nowhere!
It crunches like the tiger’s jaws
that you never see-
you simply die!
Very few lightning bolts can get the sound right-
The instant crack, arm-slap that rips the earth in two halves.
Yet I feel so slowly shoved
down the slope I’m getting sucked-
I scavenge in the city dump like a red-eyed dog,
but all I know is lying in bed,
ever unmoving.
Just let me vedge!
I actually cringe in terror
at the sound of chickadees,
impinging upon my solitude
with their chirps that sound like
life!
When I am hiding, I don’t
want to move.
I just want my addiction;
it’s all I’ve got to lose.
Alphabet Ravine 
So powerful!
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Thank you! I’m so glad.
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I agee, Megan — this is awesome, alphabetravine 🙂
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🙂 Thank you so much, da-AL!
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wonderfully profound!
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Thank you! That means a lot. And thanks for the regular commenting!
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Great piece. I really liked your use of language,especially the phrase: ‘instant crack, arm-slap’.
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Oh, that’s good to know! Thank you. It’s always great to receive specific feedback.
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I don’t know enough about a back story to comment directly to this, for fear of saying something off the mark and causing consternation. I like you way to much to risk that…
The level of intensity displayed in granite solid, so I will take nothing lightly, as I ask,
Are you Okay?
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Hey Myke! Thanks for asking, and thanks for avoiding assumptions.
My poetry is always art, like a picture, and as such, is definitely not always a self portrait. Even when most like a self portrait, it probably never ends up being such in a way that a history or biography would. Also, these poems may have been written any time in the last fourteen years. So it’s hard to learn anything about me from my poetry- though written in first person, it might be about a past me or from the perspective of someone else. And if not, it’s still probably a somewhat altered picture of reality!
I’m extremely interested in people, and voices, and in what lies in common at the roots of all our different experiences, and I’m VERY dramatic, to most peoples’ surprise. So I’m kind of Langston Hughes meets Taylor Swift. 😉
To answer your question: Yes, I am okay. And I have good people in my life that I am in good communication with, such that you don’t really have to worry much about me crying out for help about anything online. Always feel free to ask though, and always feel free to share how you connect to a poem even if it’s not from the same experience that prompted my writing it!
Thanks again!
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Lovely poetry, and very moving
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Yay! Thank you so much!
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prolific and profound… enjoyed the expression of your skilled pen
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Thank you so much! 🙂
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your welcome
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I particularly enjoy the last two verses, as they sum up the central themes of your poem. Your narrator’s voice, too, expresses, I think, the right amount of mental hysteria induced by not being allowed to indulge in its vices. I can tell they want to escape from anything not central to their specific vice, dreading everything else that comes quickly crashing in. In essence, they don’t want to face life, and that’s tragic. Good job in expressing all of these emotions, especially with your similes.
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Wonderful thoughts! Thanks for the comment. I’m glad you enjoyed it. It’s particularly good to know you appreciate the hysteria level and emotional expression. Thanks again!
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[…] Vice – Lydia Rae Bush […]
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