i want to feel at home

there’s this war inside me, i don’t know how to ignore; it wants to tear down all their walls and break their ceilings—i cannot escape the thought that i shouldn’t be living life this way that none of us should be; that we should be walking through meadows full of flowers and dancing with sunlight and moonlight braided in our hair—i want to break the bones of civilization as we know it; i want to be able to live while i am still alive not grinding myself down to nothingness praying for a way to survive—i want to live without a house that feels more like a coffin full of things i’ll never use.

Linda M. Crate

3 Questions for Linda

What was your process for creating this work?

When I saw the theme, I knew I wanted to incorporate it in a way that wasn't common. I wanted to explore an idea of what a home should be.

What is the significance of the form/genre you chose for this work?

I love prose poetry. I love poetry that tells a story. So I decided that I was going to be narrative as well as tell a story. I wanted to pour my heart and soul into the creation of something I felt truly mattered. 

What is the significance of this work to you?

The idea that we deserve a better universe, a better planet, a better home has been on my mind quite a bit these past few years especially. The world has been an unnecessarily difficult place with the pandemic, greedy corporations who raise prices and cause inflation because a living wage for someone who isn't rich is too much to ask, and now with the recent Supreme Court decisions to overturn Roe v. Wade and environmental protections – it is all too much. It just feels like there's no way to get ahead in this world, and that's not the way this should be. There should be no oligarchy or theocracy in a Democracy. We deserve better than this. I was promised a better world than this one when I was a child, and I have always had a strong sense of morality and justice. Give us the world you promised, USA, we deserve better. 

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 novella Mates (Alien Buddha Press, March 2022).

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