i was stripped of my voice once
laid in a lowly place
where i lived,
but my heart was dead;
my ships no longer knew how to sail
until i met her
and she woke the dreaming in me
when i thought it was dead—
so i won’t let the howling ghosts of the past
come back to haunt me
these nightmares cannot cut me into whispers
anymore
i have a voice and i will raise it against
anyone who would take from me my dreams
too many men want me on pedestals or in chains
or gilded cages,
and i won’t have that;
i am wild, i am fierce, and i am independent—
don’t need anyone to tell me how to be me because
my path is mine and mine alone to walk
they see me as some little bird they can keep to themselves,
but i am a white raven whose talons are sharper
than the silver song of the moon;
i am the keeper
of golden moons and rainbow dreams
did they really think they could ever contain me?
i am not a liquid or a solid or a gas
just a woman whose bones and skin are wrapped around
a thousand universes
each dotted with millions of stars all shining at once,
and i won’t allow myself to be swallowed
in the black hole of their acceptance or approval;
because i have no need for their boxes
or their judgment.
Author: Linda M. Crate
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvania 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. 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).
Link to social media or website: https://www.facebook.com/Linda-M-Crate-129813357119547/
Photo by ahmadreza sajadi on Unsplash
