humidity isn't nice
my heart belongs in autumn,
the second spring;
cinnamon and apples,
pumpkin and the scent of leaves;
everything is beautiful and
whispers every vibrant hue in the
leaves and trees and flowers—

here i bloom in my strongest elements,
october has always been my
favorite month and halloween my favorite
holiday because it was the one day i
could be as weird as i wanted and not have
to hide my truest self;
my heart belongs in autumn
where it is not too hot and not too cold
but somehow just right—
i know not everyone might understand,
but summer is too hot and too sweaty and gross
for me to fully enjoy it;
boat rides and swimming are nice but humidity is not.

--linda m. crate

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).