I hung the skeleton on the outside of the closet.
Funnily enough, the skeleton looked like me.
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.
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
hazel
mosaic inside irises
glowing between eyelashes
green, gold, yellow, and brown
like fresh leaves on autumn ground
each glance I give
my heart’s footprints
Must Be Fear
Your irises always sing an aqua harmony,
but I cannot make out their shades when you
sit me down to hear your tale.
If the tension in the air is any clue, there must be fear dancing
in the wrinkles around your eyes,
but I am trying to count colors. I focus to discern.
Gaslight
You single-handedly lay and stack each strand
of the haystack.
I burn these allergens down one by one.
You wave the needle in my face
like an escape hatch,
burn through your accusations one by one-
Alphabet Ravine 