By: Linda M Crate

dark and silent
as night

i remember the anxiety
drawing between

my legs & i

i remember praying that you
didn’t exist simply so i could breathe

then there was all that blood
wasn’t period blood either

like i lied & said it was

i am still haunted by asking you
not to exist

when i believe everyone has the right
to dream and i would have liked to hold you

but do i have the right to dream that & want that?

i am a mother
whose body became a grave

hollow and empty
a poison strangling the seed within

the flower that can never bloom.