i wish this was just a nightmare

Poetry by linda m. crate ∞ Photography by Michael T. Perkins281

 

don’t want your new world order

full of white supremacy,

and a patriarchy

who uses women for their own

sexual gratification

refusing to accept them as

humans;

i still want to know how someone

like you could be appointed

president

with no experience

and such hate and vitriol for so many people:

women, muslims, blacks, lesbians,

gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers—

your hateful dictomy

of humanity

makes me want to shed my skin become anything

other than human

because there’s no where we can run to,

and i just want this to be a bad

dream because at least then

i could wake up;

but it’s been eight days since i woke up to the bad

news and it’s clear you’re not gone yet

so i will simply have to fight

for everyone and everything i believe in

because you won’t pull me so low to hate you

i will combat your hate with love

and light

because only they can shatter the

darkness you’d conceive into the world.

  • linda m. crate

we’re tired

will the blood

already spilled never

be good enough?

i heard you say that you

loved war,

but we don’t;

we have already lost enough

loved ones—

can’t you see through the

lens of someone

who has

suffered?

i suppose that’s too far a stretch

of the imagination for someone

born with a silver spoon in his mouth,

but not all of us had that

advantage at birth;

no one wins in a war because everyone loses

someone they love and the cost is never

worth it—

that’s why we’re enraged

when you take the rights away from military families

and treat veterans like dirt and we’re tired

of being stomped on;

don’t tread on

me—

we are the women, the blacks, the muslims,

the lesbians, the gays, the bisexuals, the transgendered, the

queers, the disabled, and the poor that you

so enjoy mocking;

we are the people of the america

and we’ve had enough

of the rich elite running this world

what a mockery you’ve all

made of humanity

with all your greed and hate—

only love and light can save us but you’ve all forgotten

your hearts and souls somewhere you can’t

find them.

  • linda m. crate

 

autumn love

autumn leaves

couldn’t burn as brightly

as we did

when we startled leaves off of trees

in the burning heat of the sun

simply at our kiss,

and when we went inside

we shed clothing

like leaves

became one;

a beating heart, a burning soul

lost in where we began and where the

other ended

nothing in the world mattered

in that moment except

for the music made

together—

we were the heart of autumn:

sweat of september

and the heavy breathing of october and the

smirk of november before winter ever

had a chance to

fall.

  • linda m. crate

 

life & death

when i thought of you

my body tensed

ready

for the feel of your hands

upon me,

ready to be uprooted

from myself

to become one with you;

break my own ribs

open

and tumble into

the circumference of your eyes

a pale blue day with pale

yellow sun

a dawn to singe away the crooked

edges of night that nestled

into the grey

of us—

i brought the flames

and you the snow

i gave love and you gave distance,

and i thought our sacred

dance could last forever because opposites

sometimes attract;

but life could never tango with death

forever.

  • linda m. crate

 

we just can’t be strangers

somewhere

beneath the fingernails

and teeth and

twined limbs we

lost ourselves

to each other,

and i gave it all to him

my naked soul along with myself

unclothed or burdened by

anything;

there was sweat and heavy breathing

and inneundos,

but what started as playful banter

ended as his tongue becoming

not a salve but a sword

severing every chord between us—

 

he told me that we should

be strangers:

 

but i remember his birthday,

the scent of his hair,

and digging my nails down his back

of cooking pancakes on the

griddle and making love in autumn;

visits to mantle lake and late

night walks together

through the snow;

i remember the lilies and the roses

and the lost child—

 

how do you tell your heart

to become a stranger with someone

you love more than life itself?

 

i couldn’t do it

because between the conversations

and the sex

i lost too much of myself

to ever get it back or pretend it

never happened.

  • linda m. crate

 

you have no power here

you left me in

the cold to

die,

but i rose again from the

ashes of your

chaos;

a summer phoenix unwilling to

sacrifice immortality for a

man who never knew

what love was

anyway—

 

told me we should be strangers

simply so you could marry

the woman you cheated

on me with

with no guilt or fear of seeing

me again,

but i saw how you hung your head

at ashley’s wedding

because you knew how wrong

you were;

but i’ll forever resent your cowardice

never shall i let you walk free

until every mask of yours is shattered by

my hand and you’re forced to look

your true monsterous self

in the eyes—

 

you thought you left a wounded rabbit to die,

but i am a warrior

always recreating myself through every sorrow

your name is but a scar on the tapestry

of my being;

you never had the power to destroy me

even if you handed me my deepest wounds and emotional

agony—even if my heart felt like it would shatter like

glass;

i made it through burning brighter

than ever before.

  • linda m. crate
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Global artists and writers dedicated to sharing creativity around the world.

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