I’M MAGIC
If you’re looking for me
you shan’t find me
because I’m magic,
and you don’t believe;
I suppose a healthy dose of skepticism is
to be expected from one who doesn’t
even hold his religion
sacred
let alone his love—
you hunted me like a wild animal
with your wolf fangs
you dragged me to the ground and made me yours,
and I let you;
but I puzzled over it all—
because while I knew love was painful
I didn’t think it required this much blood,
and so I changed and became stronger
I was always a wild creature;
but now your gilded cage can’t even find me
let alone hold me.
A SOUL ON FIRE
You put your hands
into my cosmic cookie jar,
but my stars were not
yours for the taking;
they burned you on the sharp
edges of their wildness—
always I was “too” something:
too fat, too uptight, too anxious, too provocative
or I was not enough:
not pretty enough, not provocative enough, not brave enough
you could never make up your damn mind,
and so when I look back at the pictures
I can safely say
that I’m happier without you;
and your icicles so sharp and so cold as the hell fire
in your soul.
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 collectionSing Your Own Song is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Series.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Linda-M-Crate-129813357119547/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/thysilverdoe
Bindweed Magazine 