stop harmful narratives
saw a video
where a woman was
blaming mental illness
on a lack of faith,
and insisting that it was
the fault of demons;
can we not push
harmful narratives that
aren’t true when mental health
is still a stigma no matter
how much we speak of it?
she said it was just her opinion
when people called her
out instead of owning up to
her mistake,
and it just is exhausting
to see people be so willfully ignorant;
inherited my anxiety and my
depression from my mother but that doesn’t
make me a bad person or unworthy
of love and care.
it’s so obvious
you said it was all the time
i spent alone that made me
depressed,
but honestly it was you
making me feel like no matter
what i wouldn’t be good enough;
tried to be a good daughter
but you wouldn’t let me be anything
less than a burden to you and you made me
feel as everyone saw me that way—
when i stopped trying i was then
criticized for that, too, as if no matter what
i was going to be the villain in your story;
you were the adult and i was the child but
somehow your feelings were more valid than mine
in your eyes—
you always invalidated my stress,
my fears,
and my dreams;
then you wonder why we aren’t close?
it’s so obvious.
i didn’t need everyone to like me
i was bullied
relentlessly
always
even had a guidance counselor
tell me if i weren’t so weird
i would fit in with my
friends,
and it was that day i promised myself
i would always hold on and value
my weird;
because i decided i was worth being me
a long time ago—
because once i did try to fit in,
yet nothing i did ever earned the love
or respect from my peers
that i so craved;
and i realized that not everyone’s opinion
mattered and i didn’t need the friendship
of everyone.
i am worthy and i always have been
there are some people
who walked away
that still haunt me
used to think that i wasn’t
good enough to be loved,
but sometimes you just have
to pull yourself out of that bed
with that last bit of strength
you have and push on because
some people who promise
you forever walk away;
they don’t always give you
closure or a reason—
just disappear from your life
becoming a ghost whilst you’re both
still living,
and i have to admit that some days
i can ignore it and other days it weighs
heavy but i have realized it has nothing
to do with me but everything to do with them;
i am worthy and i always have been.
we didn’t choose it
every school is against bullying
until it comes to doing something
about the bullies
they won’t step in and help you,
and they’ll make you feel as if it is
your own fault that you’ve been bullied;
but it is not my fault that other
teenagers were riddled with insecurities
and decided to take it out on me—
i used to laugh and talk loudly
until they bullied me,
and now i am so soft spoken
that people complain;
i was asked out as a joke and ostracized one
day by my friends for no reason at all—
they told the guidance counselor that i
just followed them like a puppy dog and was
“so weird” and the guidance counselor blamed me, too;
it angers me that those that are wounded and hurt
are blamed for their own pain because we didn’t choose it.
Bio: Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer. Her works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of ten poetry chapbooks, the latest being: Hecate’s Child (Alien Buddha Publishing, November 2021). She’s also the author of the novella Mates (Alien Buddha Publishing, March 2022). She has three micro-poetry collections out: Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018), moon mother (Origami Poems Project, March 2020.), and & so i believe (Origami Poems Project, April 2021). She has published four full-length poetry collections Vampire Daughter (Dark Gatekeeper Gaming, February 2020), The Sweetest Blood (Cyberwit, February 2020), Mythology of My Bones (Cyberwit, August 2020), and you will not control me (Cyberwit, March 2021).
Several new poems by Linda M Crate
3 new poems from Linda M. Crate
2 Poems by Linda M. Crate : “Anyone Can Appreciate the Light” & “Until He Was Gone”
Fevers of the Mind 
2 comments