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Read More »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.
Spiral Down Staircase
Spiral Down Staircase
Weirdly good at breaking down,
been doing it since I was seven-
teen, been needing
to since I was
three, been needing to
take my time doing it, been
needing to
honor other people’s
palms
With two left feet
and sweaty palms,
Paradox
Tried to scoop a lie up in my hands
like water, but all I could
find was pure in the blue,
plus some contamination,
ground
I want to know
if songs can sing,
Drafting
in the morning,
words were
wonderful, the
words were
in the morning,
wonderful, the
Next
When I come back in the next life as a firefly,
at the pond you haunt when you fail to pass on,
I will show you how to blink in and out, in and out,
if you will tell me how not to let my soul be caged,
Company
1:39 in the morning,
ladybug on my windowsill—
Lots
I love you
over the moon—
all the way above it,
high above.
Around the dark side
and plummeting downwards,
past the other side
of the earth,
around the bottom,
back up our side.
But still never touching—
and I don’t want it to,
Chamberlin (prompt: The Heaviness of Winter from Hannah Boutilier)
My 97 beats-per-minute heart
doesn’t know it could pendulum to deep
freeze response, and I have envied those
who can spare some fear
for the dark, but I, too, do
become more fearful
in it,
so I know a full, but only a full,
Alphabet Ravine 