i could love myself

he didn’t appreciate
my temple in all
her glory,
only lusted after the
light
without an appreciation
for the darkness
or the fierce flowers that
grew within said
dark;
he couldn’t see a worth
to anything that didn’t serve him—
when i refused to allow
my temple to crumble
to service all of his needs,
he used his lust as a weapon;
promising me that he
never loved me—
after all the broken pieces
he left behind i began to sew
myself together and i didn’t lust
for a life with him but one in which
i could love myself
because my temple is worth
appreciating.

---

cut on thorns

she was someone
you cannot forget
her soul had so many
facets and so many depths,
she was someone like me;
but i will always see her
as more beautiful—
her temple was more clean,
more pristine,
smelled always of rose water;
and she admitted she was a bit
obsessed—
i have always been someone
who can appreciate the beauty
of flowers so i understood
that obsession,
fell head over heels before
i could stop myself;
wanted to bury myself in the
pink satin sunsets of her lips
and to feel the petals of her whitest
roses—
but i pushed her aside instead
too terrified of my feelings and her response to them
so i was cut on her thorns and my own thorns instead.

---

Biography

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer. Her works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of seven poetry chapbooks the latest being: the samurai (Yellow Arrow Publishing, October 2020). She’s also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018). She has three micro-poetry collections out and she has published four full-length poetry collections.