Poetry by Lorelei Bacht

            half alive - soo zzzz CC



​
Golden Girl

I have found it again and I won't tell.
It was not lost, merely misplaced - so I  
followed the hole in my pocket,
and there it was. 

This subatomic gold, nobody knows 
how I made it in the first place. 

I don't know why I must go on and on, 
listening to people who don't make it 
themselves; and they are clearly 
after mine. 

I'm waiting for night-time: when 
the bedroom is quiet, I'll go and take
a look - I am still unsure of its existence.
Who wouldn't be? 

And when I am slicing onions, buttering
bread, I can hear the soft hum of it -
I know that it wants me to receive it, 
to bear witness: I may not be 

the songbird itself, 

but I am the branch that it sings, 
which is enough of a reason to live. 





​Inmates

There are many like me - we all invent
a prison for ourselves. If you 
could speak through the keyhole,
then you would know. 

I barely know how to hold my own hand.  

All I can do is tell, tell, tell - 
that you may hear the you in me: was it 
a car, a bed, an elevator, a sofa? 

Was it your dad, your friend, a friend 
of your mother's? Was it the colour red
or black, and did you look at it,
or not - which particular light fixture? 

I know. I know. And I have seen others
walk through the same landscape 
of sand, of sting - I have seen the many  
faces of us. Drop the knife and listen: 

There is no key; the door 
is not locked; and there is no door. ​



​
Lorelei Bacht (she/they) is a European poet, bookworm and lover of nature living in Asia with her family. When she is not reading medieval poetry, she can be found observing millipedes and orb weavers. Her work has appeared / is forthcoming in such publications as Visitant, The Wondrous Real, Quail Bell, Abridged Magazine, Odd Magazine, Postscript, Strukturriss, The Inflectionist Review and Slouching Beast Journal. She is also on Instagram: @lorelei.bacht.writer and on Twitter @bachtlorelei