To the canary trapped inside a cave,
the puzzle is the cage-
Author: Alphabet Ravine
Lydia Rae Bush (she/her) is a poet exploring themes of embodiment and social-emotional development. Her work is Best of the Net nominated and can be found in publications such as Corporeal, Querencia Press, and Bleating Thing. Her chapbook Free Bleeding is out now with dogleech books.
Ideal
Humidity fills the dark,
takes the baton and keeps me warm
while the sun sits the bench.
I run secret plays with the moon
Light Up
I’ve got cares as tainted as these muddy banks,
but you sift the tales I weave
through a sieve that filters out the rest and marvels at
Jolt
I’m a live wire. I’ve got points
that I make, so maybe
my words are claws that
dig in as my mind digs deeper.
Coming
Me and my synthesized psyche,
slowly split, slowly reconverged,
so quick to ensure the safe
connection that we need to survive,
Captioning the Photo
I’ve got all the things I’m supposed to say-
just buried beneath
Fairytale
Home, skipped with every symptom
known to fifth-grade-kind,
sick of every re-run
and trapped outside of storybooks,
what adventure could be better than emptying
the overflowing closet?
Even the sickest faker
would clean if they envisioned
a clubhouse in a 3 by 3 foot space
Unspecified Note
Your good-bye arrives devoid of return address,
all well-wishes and finality.
I do not yet know your meaning of good-bye.
So I check obituaries for ghosts of present, future,
or past, that may never come.
That shifting mirages will haunt my dreams
is my only certainty:
Fathoms
I don’t know that we are quite so mundane as the diamonds,
rare,
nor like the snowflakes:
Unique,
or merely multifaceted?
The light inside our souls’ zones
goes down in shades,
Sugar and Acid
I’m sorry to your craft beer, but I scan the cocktails.
It’s not that I want a fruity drink— I just can’t pass the citrus.
I’ve seen berries turn what’s sweet to sweeter then melt to nothing,
but my mandarin soul could make a stoic pucker.
Alphabet Ravine 