By: Linda M Crate

i’ve got a lot of rage in me yet
someone says you mellow as you age,
but at this rate
i’m going to be calm as a forest fire
when i’m eighty;

sometimes i think this annoyance
is justified
other times i want to spit out the flame
myself

but i cannot tell myself how to feel
sometimes i would rather feel this anger
than nothing at all
because sometimes i find myself numb
when i don’t want to be—

there’s so much pain in me yet
i cannot process it all
although i do try
most of the time i am told to get over it
or that it’s in the past as if somehow
that means that it no longer matters
as if there was a statute of limitation on how and when
i could process all these things in me,

and i know people mean well;
but sometimes if they meant well they should
just let me unload the chest of my burdens
so i didn’t have to carry them anymore

i know it’s not healthy
to always feel so much but i would rather
feel so much than nothing at all
because i have felt nothing at all at the wrong moments

& everyone looks at you
expecting something profound and great because you’re brilliant, and you just cannot
say a word at all, because everything catches
in your throat and chokes you silent.