by Linda M. Crate
shouldn’t have depended
on my respect
when you couldn’t build
a worthy nest
you shouldn’t have expected
my heart to bloom
when all you gave me was
discord and disapproval
tears were my only friends
some nights as i hugged my pillow
tight for comfort
as a lonely elephant holding her tail,
but it was always you that were right
and me that was wrong;
even when it wasn’t true—
instead of breaking the cycle you broke me,
and i was just a little girl.
i was starved of love.
only thought you would love me
unconditionally as i loved you
despite all the pain you gave me,
but your love was unattainable;
i couldn’t be a good person in your eyes
let alone a good daughter—
for a long time you killed the dreaming in me
until i was able to escape the long claws
of your dismissive paws,
but sometimes the raven conquers the wolf.
Linda M. Crate‘s 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), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).