Poetry by Linda M. Crate

​a part of me will always be broken 

​once you told me
apologizing for the same thing
over and over meant you
weren't really sorry
so i can only assume that you
were never truly sorry for all the ways
you consistently hurt me
time and time again,
and you have no idea how much i regret
that we couldn't be closer or have a loving relationship
like a father and daughter should;
but i put this ocean between us because you really
hurt me--
dove into the wreckage again today
found that little girl buried in her tears and her anger
wedged between a rock and a hard place
bullied at school even by some of her teachers
uprooted from happiness at home
she could find no refuge
except in books and in writing,
and you held her in contention for not being like everyone else;
like individuality were a bad thing
you always put a sour taste in my mouth
sometimes you still do--
i see the way you treat my sister and it hurts
because you show her all the love
as if i was never worthy of your kindness,
but i know in order to find peace
i must forgive you;
sometimes i don't know if i can because you wounded me so
deeply i will always be broken.



you can count on me to feel everything 

you can always count on me to bring the intensity and heat, to fall in love too quickly, to stay in love with all the people who have broken my heart for eternity; you can count on me to be loyal even to people who don't deserve my loyalty, you can count on me to give too many second chances until i have no chance but to walk away from a friendship that only serves to break me; you can always count on me to second guess and overthink everything, to find hidden meanings in things that may not even have them—i try so hard to be strong, but sometimes i'm not strong; sometimes i need someone to hold me but they never do; they only tell me i am strong as if my tears scare them, as if my emotions will somehow break them—i need someone who will love me as deeply and profoundly as i love, but i don't know if such a person exists; i am terrified that i'll never find them, i don't want to settle for anything and so i fear falling hard for the wrong person—just don't want someone who doesn't know how to love me to hurt me again because you can always count on me to dig up the wounds of the past, and find a reason to hurt; long after people say it is in my past because i'm never past the pain—i have to feel so much that sometimes i think this blessing is more a curse.



the girl who cries oceans into existence 

i've shed so many tears today that i couldn't count them all, thinking of all the bullies in my past; why do wounded people think it's okay to damage others simply because they're hurting? i'll never fathom the logic in that because hurting someone shouldn't make you happy, it should make you feel worse; 

i have thought of all the tears i cried and i still don't understand the insensitivity toward my sensitivity, and their need to get a rise from a girl who was always lost in a sea of words deep inside of her; maybe they just wanted to see me feel something, but i always felt everything more deeply than they could ever know--

won't pretend that i was always innocent, i know i snapped like a snarling dog at people who didn't deserve it; but i was also hurt by people who should've known better and should've been more gentle with me, people who claimed to love me treated me as if i were trash and scum;

i have never known where to put this pain so sometimes i put them in poems hoping if nothing else someone can see that it is okay to be a wreck and a masterpiece all at once because we're all works in progress, and sometimes we fall apart at the seams; beautiful things can come from the broken--

flowers will one day grow over all these empty patches of soil in me, but today the wounds are salted and they burn; and that's okay, i will find a way to survive the day, hoping tomorrow will be better and more beautiful; hoping that the world will remember a kinder heart than i once knew.

Bio: 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. She has three published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. The third of the seven book series Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016. Her novel Corvids & Magic was published March 2017.

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