Linda M. Crate- Three Poems

fretful

mountain faces dance through

shadow, uprising in pale blue white

like clouds drifting through seas

of azure flecked with bodies of birds –

it cannot be discovered or found out

only seen; like I cannot break through

the force field you’ve constructed

around yourself as if you think I mean

to harm you, I wish that you would

let your fears fall away like autumn

leaves; I wish you’d let me in –

it would never be my intention to

hurt you, and yet you hold me at arms

length like everyone else, and cleave

to your apprehension like a lover.



you’ll get yours eventually

your brow is frosted with the

cruelty of winter, I know that

you mean to destroy me with

those frozen green pools you’ve

ripped from the grass and used

as your irises; you’re a borrowed

construct with a wicked purport –

you mean to do nothing less

than destroy everything I’ve ever

meant to build, you make a mockery

of all the pretty things I’ve made;

you turn my sweet truths into nothing

more than a joke and laugh at all

my failures when they take wing, but

one day it will be worth it just to see you

flailing in the waters of self made discontent.



entrapment

I’m locked inside

like these thoughts

swirling inside me,

squirming to be free

of this cage of bones

to run their own race –

trapped in your inescapable

fortress of words, I pull

at the chains of captivity,

I was never meant to be your

prisoner but you took me

anyway because you could –

you broke the branches of

every birch, fir, and maple

thrust their dead bones

down my throat to choke

me in an isthmus of fear and

doubt, you told me that you’d

never hurt me; yet that was

a lie that I’d choke on, one

day I’ll master your lock and

turn it on its head, one day I will

make you come to regret me.