“it needs more light”

by Linda M. Crate

i used to laugh loud and talk loud

until i was mocked for it,

now i have sewn myself into softness

and silence and people tell me that

i am too quiet;

no matter what you do or who you are

there's someone that's going to be unhappy

so you may as well be yourself—

because there's no freedom in restraining

who you are for the happiness of others,

and if they truly loved you they would care

more about your happiness than their 

personal preferences;

one day i hope that i can get my voice back

even if i never can i know that i can write

these words with the hopes that i can help 

people who suffered like me in a world that

will be cruel to you and then ask why you don't

love yourself? in a world that will be cruel to 

you and then ask why you're not smiling?

in a world where they want you to be just

another prototype, dare to be yourself;

the world doesn't need more shadows—it needs more light.

Linda M. Crate's poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has ten 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), and Hecate's Child (Alien Buddha Publishing, November 2021) 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 novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).