the freedom to fly
i am my own worst critic,
don’t need your
harsh words, too;
i dissect conversations from
years ago
those people and those moments
are gone—
demand perfection from myself,
even when i know that i can’t be
anything less than perfect;
i am still learning who i am and how to be—
still learning to embrace my magic,
and appreciate myself and this wild heart
of mine;
they always tried to tame me but i never
let them take my wings and that is one thing
i am grateful for because i am not the type of soul
you can tether to the ground—
i need the freedom to fly.
©2022 Linda M. Crate All rights reserved.
Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has eleven 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), splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019), the samurai (Yellow Arrowing Publishing, October 2020), Follow the Black Raven (Alien Buddha Publishing, July 2021), Unleashing the Archers (Guerilla Genesis Press, August 2021), Hecate’s Child (Alien Buddha Publishing, November 2021) and fat & pretty (Dancing Girl Press, June 2022). She is also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022).