i have no respect
for you
because you are a man
who shirks duty
and pretends love is a game,
running from his problems
as if mere demands that i be a stranger
will make it so;
a part of me will always love you
but i don’t want or need you—
you were the wolf that turned on me,
snarling and yowling like the wind you ripped
out my vital organs
leaving me to bleed in the snow beneath the pines;
i had to die to who i was to survive
acquire new feathers as i rose from the ashes
of your chaos
a white raven whose flames will never die—
i will not be defeated so easily
as that
will come back to haunt you like a ghost
since you have done this to me for many moons now
four years is enough time to torment me
especially since you’ve already moved on
i need not these memories of you because they’re more
bitter than sweet and i have never acquired the need
for pomegranates in my life.
Linda M. Crate’s works have shown up in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She has four published poetry chapbooks the latest of which is If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). She is also the author of the Magic Series and the forthcoming Phoenix Tears.
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