By: Linda M. Crate

perhaps another queen

you’re barking up the wrong tree
if you only want a night of bliss

looking for a love
deeper than the roots of the oldest
tree,

and i’ve been told to be
more realistic
but miracles happen every day
among the mayhem and chaos
i cannot help myself but to dream;

you’re barking up the wrong tree
if you’re looking for someone to control—

aware of my magic and my power,
i won’t surrender these to
anyone;

i am a queen of my own kingdom
don’t need any kings to become
parasites to my dreams
because i have too many things to accomplish

lately i have been thinking perhaps
i need another queen.

###

you were my utena

i was never brave enough
to tell you
how i felt,
but i still love you all these
years later;

even though we are no
longer friends—

i knew you saw me as a
sister,
but my heart fell harder than i was willing
to leap;

i appreciate the beauty of your song
even if it is has been years

since the fae woke me from death
when i thought i would never
know dreams again—

all my life i had known nothing but criticism,
but you were different you gave me both
praise and told me when i was in
the wrong;

and i never had anyone look out for me
the way you did—

i couldn’t be your anthy, but you were my utena.

###

the universe makes believers of us all

i remember
when you walked in
the doors
of the store
that rainy night,
pouting in your yellow jacket;
insisting that you felt cute
yet the pictures said otherwise—
i tried to tell you that you
were cute,
but i don’t think you heard me;
you were sweet as sugar
a balm to a terrible night and i still
remember your kindness—
i wanted to get to know you better
that night,
and i think it was love at first sight
because the universe knows i am
a skeptic to tales like that;
but the universe makes believers of us all.

###

they need not sit at my table

i thought you
loved me

turns out i was
just another
victim of your lust

selfish and corrosive,

you left me for dead
buried beneath all of your
desire;

but i rose again
on the flaming wings of a phoenix

because i have always risen
from the ashes—

i learned to love myself,
and it is the greatest love story
i have ever known because i do
what’s in my best self-interest and follow
my own dreams

without having to stand on the edge
of myself wondering if i am enough—

i have always been and always will be
enough,
and anyone who disagrees with me
clearly isn’t a lover of the language of my soul
or the mythology of my bones;

and they need not sit at my table.

###

let us dance in this garden, my queen

your lips
soft
as the sinew of the
clouds,
and crashing into me
like the angriest
ocean wave;

i felt all of my sunsets
paint their wings
across your
waters—

a word of caution
i am chaos,
full of oceans and mountains
and flowers and trees;
every bird and magic and power
you could hope to imagine
exists here

if you still want to hold
my hand then i know you love me—

i may not always be dew drops
glistening on the grass,
but i will never be anyone but me;

and if you still want to be the fae
dancing to the music of my mayhem
then let us dance in this
garden of magic together, my queen.

###

perhaps you’d understand

there’s no greater bliss than
knowing you’ve been found,

and i hope that i can always
find peace in your arms;

that you can be my home
because i have been

homeless for too long when it
comes to love—

no one seems to understand the
language of my heart and soul

or the mythology of my bones,
and none of my friends quite understand

me in the way that i need;
and so when you washed up on the

shores of my ocean i thought maybe
perhaps there will be someone who

understands my depths and does
not fear them so much as to head back to the shallows.