i know relationships
ebb and flow,
but sometimes
i wonder if our friendship
means anything to you;
when we are together we
always have a good time but
when we're apart the conversations
seem rather sparse in comparison to
what they once were—
you mean a lot to me,
i don't want to lose you;
but if you want to lose me then
i know there's nothing i can do
or say that will make you stay—
i wish i could make you care,
or make you see all the ways you've
wounded me so that perhaps
you could be a better friend to me;
so that you could see all the aching
you've caused and put an end to it.
-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).