remain silent 
silence looks good on you
you almost seem
angelic
with those breathless parted
lips and bright blue eyes,
and long white blonde hair singed
with a few pieces of gold;
as distant as a dying
star
which suits you as you carry distance
so well in your steps
only striving to create divides between you
and anyone foolish enough to
love you—
when you speak
it's only to expound your brilliance
upon the world or to prove
all the ways in which the other person you're
speaking to is inferior,
and i tire of your
voice;
silence looks good on you
i can almost forget all the hateful, hurtful things you
said to me and how you blamed me for breaking
my own heart when you cheated on me
and told me nothing but lies.
- linda m. crate 


won't be your shadow 
i come alive
when i think of all the ways
i'm going to choke
you in a novel
of all the words i can lace into your soul
like arsenic to erode away 
what little of you
still feels,
and i come alive when i think of all the ways
i can slap you in the face with
knowledge and tear your masks into a thousand
pieces and shove it down your throat;
as i force you to see your own
lies—
then i remind myself that'd only make me a monster
like you,
and i aspire to be something higher than this
dust;
won't be your shadow
so you can have your fangs
i'll take my success.
- linda m. crate 


cannot tame me 
you fancy yourself rather clever,
but for you that'd be
a difficult endeavor;
these ties i'm all so glad you severed
because i would have hated to
remember myself
as your wife—
i was already your fool once,
and that's bad enough
to be a fool of a fool;
i cannot wrap around my mind how silly i
must have looked—
at least i regained my senses
realized the folly and the shame of what i
had done,
and it hurts that i gave you my naked heart and soul
only to have it rejected;
but i realize your love was only ever a gilded cage
because you didn't know how to
so you really did free me
when you freed
yourself—
i'll never thank you for the cacophony you put my
heart and soul through as it was all so needless,
but thank you for setting me free;
i am a wild bird
can never be tamed
especially by a man who cannot temper his own soul.
- linda m. crate 


let him 
let the wolf have his pound of flesh
it'll only serve to burn him
because i am a raven
with a phoenix soul
all my feathers
can dance through the ring of fire
let his fangs melt straight
from his face
because he doesn't deserve to steal the 
song from my wings,
and i hope he
is blinded by my rising because he's already
seen my fall;
i may stumble and i may land face first but i will
never stop rising like air—
let the wolf have his pound of flesh
it'll only cause him to regret later
as it burns him
with memories of yesteryear 
reveals to him that he is a boy masquerading as a man
so let that wolf give himself indigestion and starve
himself on regret.
- linda m. crate 


wicked one 
yes,
so glad that you've
noticed
i'm flawed;
forgot you were born
without flaw
and to be worshiped 
sacred and pure
a god
that i was never worthy of—
you make me sick
wish i could have seen straight through
your every deception,
but my heart fell for you and it fell
hard;
mulled it over and i decided
you were right about
something
you were and are and always will be a knave
because you don't aspire for anything
higher—
so stay stuck in your stagnant sea
paint me your villain
still i'll rise
because i'm not truly the wicked one.
- linda m. crate 


you lied about everything 
when it comes down to it
i was constant as the
sun,
and you inconstant as the moon;
i was light and you were
swallowed into shadows and voids
i tried to help you
and you showed me only 
coldness—
i guess i thought that perhaps
we knew the same
tragic lullabies
once in the past because i am a daughter of
the moon and of the stars
i thought perhaps
we could
understand one another,
but your claws and my talons were too different
oceans separated us
each with their own hurricanes;
maybe it was just wishful thinking that made me think
you'd understand my song—
i can't say it's surprising we fell apart,
but it hurt like pulled wisdom teeth and it cut like
the floss that took longer than two weeks
to dissolve;
i suppose i just wanted to believe you could be different
because it's what you promised but you lied.
- linda m. crate