By: Linda M Crate

don’t want to lose you

i guess you could call
this broken thing in me
a heart,
but i always put the pieces back together
differently after it’s been shattered;
i know i won’t recognize it
next december
it will be different in some ways—
perhaps more scars,
or maybe more joy;
even both
are possible—
in this moment, however, all i know is misery
a yearning of wanting you to stay
i can tell you don’t want to go;
yet muses are fickle things
and you say you’re lost the thread but i don’t
want all the plots to go spinning on their heads
like tops—
we don’t always get to decide who comes,
and who goes;
but i pray somehow and some way you choose to stay
i don’t want to lose you.

###

broken armor

there is no armor
protecting me
from the fires of your rage
past and present

there are days that i can forgive you
others where i hold a grudge,

but all i ever wanted
was for you to love me
in spite of all my flaws and failures;

but you were determined
to hold everything against me
made your tongue into a weapon
cursed my birth and prayed for my destruction
i wept so many times to God
screaming for reason to live in a world
that made me want to die—

i have found strength
having walked through hell,
and you will never steal my voice
nor dreams from me again;

i will destroy you pedestals
and every gilded cage will know their end

i am persephone
goddess of life and death
flowers and ruin,

and i will give you death and ruin for every
dream you left forsaken
in the temple of my heart,
father,
you are the failure
not me.

###

we will shine brighter

the howling wind, the ancient wing, the dancing song of leaves, gemmed creeks and rivers, the blooming flowers, the singing ravens and crows, the magical moon, the mystical sun; all of these things are my home—i find myself removed from humanity for all their ugliness and nightmares cannot do anything more than haunt me, and i desire to live barefoot in the wild and green earth who is wild and golden hearted as i; she understands i cannot be tamed or owned just as she cannot—she is the only one who grants me peace when words fail to heal me because language sometimes cannot articulate the things the soul needs to hear, but nature knows all the songs; every psalm she speaks heals every broken thing in me—i need not know man [un]kind, i need not his judgment nor his scorn; i need not know his pedestals or cages—for too long he has taken my dreams from me, my voice from me, my body; i reclaim all these things with nature by my side and i will use my heart as a weapon against darkness—with all my love and light i will free not only myself but all the dreamers and keepers of golden moons because we will shine brighter than any darkness of any nightmare they could conjure.

###

what i will find

the moon lit sky
scorched open my eyes
painted me into
a sunset
i didn’t know i needed
to fuel the fire
within my soul
extinguished by so many
ardent battles
that fought for control over me and my voice,
and i realized i had a choice
i could live in their world and be miserable
or i could enchant myself
with my dreams;
i chose the latter because i know i am meant
to live
not simply exist—
i am not content to get drunk or have one night stands
desire and crave more than a good time
i want, i need a good life
and that is what i will find.

###

the lost ones

i remember once
things were simple
i miss those days
where the golden sun
could kiss me open
as a tulip, and all would be
right as rain again;
it takes so much effort these days
to sew back together the ribbons
of a broken heart
i wish i could remember the magic
of yesteryear which made everything easy—
then again,
goodbyes have never been easy for me;
to be forgotten and to be lost
by someone i love is the worst feeling in the world
i remember everyone i have ever loved
yet i am left to wonder if i ever drift upon their focus
when they’re gone
i rather doubt it—
so i will sit here in the past with my dandelion wishes
praying that adulthood never comes
because there is no passage of time that eases this pain
of losing someone when they are alive
it is worse to lose them than the person who dies
because the dying didn’t choose to go.

###

please stay

never knew
i was going to care so much
would’ve stopped
myself
would have gone on
lonely as a cloud
without knowing the warmth of your friendship
if it were going to come down to this
because this hurts
worse than a break-up
because i can go without kisses and without romance
without friendship i have nothing but this void where your name
once stood,
and i cannot endure that;
it hurts too badly—
my broken heart still makes music
yet i don’t want the records to be shattered again
as i make a new song of myself
you seem reluctant to go
so i pray you find some reason to stay
because i don’t want our garden to be run over with weeds
until only death comes to our flowers.