isn’t there something comforting
about everything you ever wanted,
unsure if the high was betrayed or best conveyed
by the crash—
Author: Alphabet Ravine
Lydia Rae Bush (she/her) is a poet rooted in lyric and dramatic traditions, currently exploring collaboration, intertextuality, and ekphrasis. Rae's work is Best of the Net nominated, examines embodiment and social-emotional development, and includes Free Bleeding (dogleech books, '25), Keeper, Seeker, Dragon of the Sea (Bottlecap Press, '25), and All the Little Church Girls' Paper Dolls (fifth wheel press, ‘26. Lydia is an associate editor for Sage Cigarettes Magazine, and can be found pretty much anywhere, generally wiggling.
Shrapnel
When you say you did a thing,
and you’re scared you did the wrong thing,
or did the right one wrong,
Measuring Cup
Left, right, fingers and toes,
climbing up through kitchen drawer
handles— just the daily grind
when you’re only four—
helping bake by eating the quarter
cup of flour given to you, helping
yourself to the dish of butter,
sticky-fingered, when they turn their
Redpoint
He asked me where I was planning to go
to accomplish the climbing route.
He beamed, called me sweetly simple.
I’d snapped at him, “Up.”
Saved Reel
The baby lemur’s back already
lies against his elder’s stomach,
but he gives a light tug
at their sensitive face,
Misunderstand
I’m tired of passing people the ball
and watching them place it in their court,
hyacinth
hips, heel, shoulder blades, and crown
for the tree bark
Safe
I regress through feelings of my girlhood, like a
woman healing. My shame hadn’t felt dirty
in so long, but my new dance moves mimic
clawing at my face, and I’m finally saving for the
teddy bear the house fire took away. Old raging
Force of Nature
As the wind whittles my bark,
carves my trunk,
19
Carefree, seeking pleasure, full of hormones,
bent on banter. Crashing towards, orbiting,
or straddling our fuel—no center. What
is gravity? Can’t hold us down, or back. Just
Alphabet Ravine 