the best rose gardens
i will never invite you again
to the gazebo
of my heart
so stand outside the gate
of my heart
looking mournfully in forever
as my true friends and i
drink champagne from out pretty
flutes glimmering like the wings of glass butterflies who never have
to fear breaking the same way
my heart did when you were in my life,
and i am not sorry for leaving
no amount of apologies will bring me back;
stop hounding my mother because no matter
how many times you whimper and plead
or demand my presence i will not return to you—
you threw me into oblivion's eye
had to claw my way back out into the light
by myself so you don't get to claim
any of my accomplishments as praise
nor compliment i know
you'll play the victim
you always do,
but you were the one that left
our garden of friendship to die;
so i stuck a fork in it and called it done
because i dine on only the best rose gardens
Image: John William Waterhouse - The Soul of the Rose, 1903.
took the spine from their quills
they used to tell me
i was weird
with those smug smirks
curling them into
the victor and me to the victim,
but now i look at them
smirking smugly
insisting that they have no idea;
they think i'm quoting scar
but i'm being honest—
i have wept too many tears
for monsters
so i have decided to be selfish
with my tears
only those i love deserve oceans
and only those i love
deserve my presence
i am so tired of being lonely in crowded rooms
so i avoid them like the plague
because they're the death of me,
and i have died so many times
i want to live a life
that doesn't feel so wretchedly painful;
so i take the spine from their quills
they don't hurt me so bad anymore—
but they don't know
i've done this
so they keep trying to stick it to me
not knowing they'll never wound
because this birds wings will never break again
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 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).