By: Linda M Crate

everything is crumbling
so sick of life
and death
being treated as a game
i don’t want to sit on the sidelines
as everyone and everything
i love fades and dies
away

they need to stop this madness
it’s gnawing on the
margins of my mind no matter how much
i try to ignore it
keep praying for peace and closing my eyes
telling myself to breathe
because if this is meant to be the apocalypse
no one can stop it

yet i don’t want to die
i want to live
all these years i simply existed because
i wasn’t given the advantage
of a silver spoon
just want to know the great wide out there
to learn all the knowledge of the world
i can fathom

to be able to dream and teach
my children the meaning and beauty of words
to marry someone who can appreciate
my depths, my wild, and my intensity
who can soothe away my worries
i want that truth instead
of the one that shrieks like a banshee in my head.