Four Poems | Linda Crate
as i am
i didn’t know what to say
when you told me i better not
to be a lesbian,
felt as if you had stumbled into
a secret of mine i wasn’t ready to share;
except i’m not a lesbian but i am also
not straight—
i buried that part of myself for a long time
because i was taught that it was wrong,
and because i saw how they bullied that
one openly gay boy on our bus until he
thought taking his life was the only option;
i told myself and them a lie that day
when i said:
“i am straighter than an arrow”—
everyone seemed to think nothing of it,
and all my life people around me were
openly dismissive of the lgbtq+ community;
do you know the trauma it is to carry a
part of yourself a secret always in case
someone disagrees?
i love you, but i wish you could love me;
as i am not as who you want me to be.
to me she’s always been kind
i know what it’s like to be unappreciated
and to feel as if no one loves you,
perhaps that’s why i have always loved
unappreciated things and my favorite birds
will always be ravens and crows;
they have a beautiful magic few can understand—
just as few seem to understand my worth
and magic,
i always stop and listen to crow song and watch
their movements against the blue or gray or
white skies as they drift into clouds to do their
spells across the sky;
most people love the sun but i know that he
can be cruel so i am wary of him—
the moon is my mother, to me she’s always been kind.
a finer powder
you may have gotten away with murder
the first time you buried me,
but i assure you that i am stronger now
than i was then;
you thought i was damsel in distress just
because i like to wear skirts and dresses—
i am feminine not fragile,
and you’ll find that i am not someone
you can tame;
i am feral and i am fierce
come to tear me from the home
and hearth of my dreams and my aspirations
you’ll see just how vicious i can be—
wanted to break me just because you could,
and now that i’ve risen upon flaming immortal wings;
i am here to remind you that phoenixes may have
tears that heal but their fires also burn their
enemies into a finer powder than dust.
in the guise of all your darkness
you named me the villain in your story,
i am certain of it;
so tell me what
am i?
the blood thirsty vampire? the angry
harpy? the shrieking banshee? the
furious werewolf? the village witch
that no one has ever trusted? the dark fae?
i just want to know which part i should play
because i will be as good an actor as you
trying to convince everyone you know you’re the hero,
and i’ve been in theater before;
so i am sure i can be convincing in whatever role
you need me to be—
i just need you to know that i will be the best villain,
the one that you cannot defeat and cannot outrun;
and i know they’ll hate me for it when they see you are
just a man but maybe you should’ve thought of that
before you made me the enemy, before you painted me
in the guise of all your darkness and doom and guile.
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash
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).
