the wounds of clouds
By Linda M. Crate
white is painful
mournful and alone
despite the fact it is all colors
it is pain trying to push itself
through the chords of purity
insisting that it is content,
but i’m not so sure;
it is white wall and white words
& white hands and white noise that have
always bruised me—
i only wear white when i am melancholy or sad
because my colors feel so muted and dead
devoured by white who is so cruel
because she is wounded
even though i’ve told her time and time again
you cannot just hurt someone
because you are hurt
that is just cruel and it is just wrong,
but i’m not so sure she heard me;
her eyes glanced into a horizon
beyond the sun
i cannot see without becoming blind.
–
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). She is the author of four novels: Blood & Magic (March 2015); Dragons & Magic (October 2015); Centaurs & Magic (November 2016); Corvids & Magic (March 2017).
Photo by Gessy Alvarez.
