Besting jungles
the poetry of your eyes
as the sun fell upon the hazel of you
made green glittering forests
dance and beckon to me,
and i fell in too deep as i always do;
you let me into your jungle
never warned me of the tigers
until they buried me
beneath the stars—
the rains poured through the tapestry
of big leaved trees,
and my pain ached like a river;
until one day i stood up and found a healing green
and forget the sharp daggers of your eyes
because i could never hate such a beautiful color
even if i would scrape it away from you
along with the browns
because you’re not worthy of them, either;
sometimes the villains
get the best lines
but one day i will write a poem
that will best your jungles and you will see that you’re
not the only one with universes.
to burn a nightmare
i was six
when you married her,
and you still loved me;
but somewhere
along the lines you stopped loving me—
you’ll claim otherwise,
but you were the one that told me
if you apology for the same thing more than
once you didn’t mean it;
so you meant to damage me—
took your own hurts and made them mine
a child should never have to carry
her father’s mountains,
but that’s exactly what you made me do;
instead of shattering the cycle
you broke me—
thin compliments and fragile mercies
sewed me back together with the hiss of your tongue,
but i knew it was a reckless and clumsy idea;
i rebelled against all your rigidity
you craved my vulnerability and fragility
and for that i gave you claws—
because sometimes light isn’t enough to fight monsters
sometimes you have to use your own nightmares
to burn them.
Linda M. Crate’s poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has five published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), and splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).
Chantarelle's Notebook 