the sun lacks compassion
from what i can see,
teases us with light but we
can never be certain whether or
not it will be warm and cold;
i have needed the warmth of
the sun before to break all the
broken things in my heart and was
only provided with a snubbing sun
cold and proud and haughty—
the sun hasn't always been there for me,
but the moon has;

she's taught me that i am beautiful
in all of my phases and always
full of light even when i feel invisible
to the world—
she's never told me lies,
but she's beckoned me out at night
to dance beneath her light;
and when i went back inside insomnia
had been chased away—
the moon is a dear friend,
and the sun is a frenemy that i'm still
not sure is even a friend.
-linda m. crate

Published on September 1st, 2022

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), and three micro-chapbooks Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018), moon mother (Origami Poems Project, March 2020), and & so I believe (Origami Poems Project, April 2021). She is also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022).