Three Poems by Linda M. Crate

a raven called karma

cut down to the bone
my feathers
stuck out of my shoulders
at weird angles as you
struck out
with your parallelograms
of rage and insincerity
seeking to destroy every fabric
of my being into the
same void that sings your name,
but you forgot that i am
like persephone
preferring peace but also knowing war;
i will burn you in the ashes of
your chaos--
once you witnessed my descent,
but now watch my
rise
burning through memories like bones
ripping out your fur the same way you did my feathers
without touching you at all
because my best revenge
is success.



you are your own noose

i offered you
my naked heart and soul
you saw neither
all you ever did was satisfy
your need,
but nothing was ever enough;
you were gone
far before you left me
i kept holding on
knowing that patience is a virtue
you killed me with all that
distance--
but when you came back to me
it was only to tell me that it was over
maybe it was something i knew
before you said it,
but i kept clinging to hope with all of my
talons insisting that we could
one day be one;
i think the more you didn't need me the more
my heart decided to love you--
it wasn't fair, it wasn't right
what you did;
but life is seldom fair or right yet i know one day
i will see you stumble and fall and i will be
on the ladder of success--
you will call my name,
and i will pause but for a moment before
leaving you to drown beneath
the waves of your own lust.



you never let me be me

i come alive
when i feel the memories
of you and i slip away
because i know
my heart is
healing,
and there are no harpy claws
needed on my part
to rip you to pieces
because karma
will hit you harder than i ever could;
let her have your liver
i never could
stand the taste--
your gilded cage doesn't taste
so sweet to me anymore
because my song
is for
everyone,
and i don't have to succumb to your
rage or whims anymore;
i can just fly wherever i want--
you tried to tame me,
but i am wild
don't need your instruction to be me
i've done it all my life.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville.  Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print.  Recently her two chapbooks, A Mermaid Crashing into Dawn (Fowlpox Press, June 2013) and Less Than a Man (The Camel Saloon, January 2014) were published.  Her fantasy novel, Blood & Magic, was published in March 2015.  The second novel of this series, Dragons & Magic, was published in October 2015.  Her poetry collection, Sing Your Own Song, is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Authors' Series.