Linda Crate- 3 Poems

my time is not now 

 

silly boy you mistook forgiveness

with forgetting, I would be stupid

to loose my hold of those memories

that still cut like shards of glass, the

words you aimed at my head like a 

rifle before pulling the trigger, I’ll

not hold your transgressions against

you, but I’ll never trust you again;

you wounded me deeper than the

ocean, eroded me worst than the

sea eating away at rocks; you burned

my heart into stardust the rest of me

will follow one day, but not by you; 

I’ll go on my own day and terms.

a proton and a neutron 

 

you trip over the syllables like a laughing girl,

like I always falter when I walk; I over or under

calculate each step, always such a klutz; but my

words flow like honey whereas you trip over your

vernacular and walk straight, perhaps, we could

help one another if we weren’t so proud to admit

that we have problems, maybe we were the two

hinges of a door separated at birth; maybe that’s

how we can complete each other so perfectly

without knowing how it is that opposites attract —

it’s like we’re back in science class and I’m a

proton and you’re a neutron, it’s like these bones

and lips and marrow have nothing to do with the

fabric of whom we truly are; it’s just window

dressing masking the skeletons of life that no 

one wants to see, we shine as brightly as the stars

together, but as individuals we’re lacking, please

never send me back out there in the world alone.

the hold of winter 

 

threadbare branches of wizened

trees hold their arms without leaves

so proudly, as if enamored by their

own strength which lends them

to stand without their children; the

cardinal sits upon them, cutting

across the dreary landscape of winter’s

alms thrust into the aorta of the land;

like the pieces of you that froze over

my heart in icy fingers; you were a

parasite like winter, stealing the marrow

from my bones and leaving me weary —

I dreamed of spring days coming to

thaw away all the damages that ravaged

against my brow; but you chased her 

pastel skirts away for as long as you could;

you wanted me to suffer the crime of

loving you; I never understood why you

were so cruel, why you had to erode away

at my heart piece by piece before throwing

me to the mouth of jagged rocks; you say

I’m not always the martyr, but I’m not always

the one to blame, sometimes the facsimiles

spun pour from your mouth in absinthe not mine.

Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has been published in various journals the latest of which including: Skive, The Scarlet Sound, and Speech Therapy.