Two Poems | Linda Crate

brought every fire

i saw the fissures

of your soul,

and i blamed myself;

but you are responsible

for yourself—

saw you walking in hell in

one of my dreams,

and i cried;

but now i see why you

were walking in the darkness alone

it is what you have earned

for yourself after becoming the

nightmare in so many of our stories—

i tried to be the light to help you

find your own spark,

and in return you tried to break

me with your spokes of darkness;

so i rose again on brighter and stronger

wings so that you could never destroy me again:

i rose as the phoenix and brought every fire.

all of this distance

i have always struggled

with farewell,

but if you want to say

goodbye

i would much rather you

say it rather than try to spare me;

because these shallow incantations

of friendship hurt me more—

i have never liked hollow

words or meaningless gestures,

i don’t need grand promises

or even the world;

all i have ever needed and craved

is someone who loved me despite

and in spite of my flaws and scars—

i thought you were one of those

people,

but i don’t think so with each

passing day;

i wish you would just let me go if

you don’t feel anything for me—

it would hurt less than all of this distance.

Bio:

Linda M. Crate’s poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has nine published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019), the samurai (Yellow Arrowing Publishing, October 2020), Follow the Black Raven (Alien Buddha Publishing, July 2021), and Unleashing the Archers (Guerilla Genesis Press, August 2021) and three micro-chapbooks Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018), moon mother (Origami Poems Project, March 2020), and & so I believe (Origami Poems Project, April 2021). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).