Without the love,
where’s the safety?
Without the safety,
where’s the peace?
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.
Harbor
Your respect for me stands as tall and immovable
as the cliff. You ebb and flow,
as the lapping waves.
Outsider Complex
Sometimes I would like to be a hero—
Clean-handed, showing up,
averting eyes while all the villains
fall on their own swords.
(After I stare morbidly
while my beloved bargaining chips cry.)
Secret
I hung the skeleton on the outside of the closet.
Funnily enough, the skeleton looked like me.
Collide
I love you with
all the relaxation
in my shoulders
as your lats
bump my traps.
Cavern
Cedar and birch drift beneath stone arch,
carrying you, carrying me, like the aliens we are
through black hole into universe unknown.
Crop Tops and Claws
They’ll spit the word “fashion”,
as though what they’re trying to vomit out
isn’t un-silenced, honest expression.
They’ll tell you how to dress, as though
they’re not saying how to feel.
They’ll condemn all impermanence,
as though phases aren’t actually stages
Together
If I love you and you love me,
we both I Love You, even as
we flip each other’s pronouns ’round,
fights with you in her dreams/keeps on waiting for a sign/regrets you all the time (A Response Poem)
The first time I screamed,
I stopped when I felt guilty.
The sixteenth time, I stopped
when I felt like I’d gone mad.
The hundredth time, I screamed ’til I felt
I’d shown myself to be too insane to come back from it
100
old words, new ways
different chapter, same change
always some cents short
Alphabet Ravine 