i'll make you nothing

"Whispering Strands" by Sulyn Godsey

i'll make you nothing

your mercy

withered on the vine

you'll hold me

accountable

for all your crimes,

but i am not the type of bird

you want to cross;

i will claw out your eyes

without remorse—

you send out your nightmares,

and your monsters;

thinking you've got the upper hand

but you don't see the light

of my dreams or my love and how

they'll both erase your names

until they've become void—

i will step out of the shadows of your swords,

and i will carry the sword called kindness

slaughtering you beneath your egos;

and forever sever your ties to me

until all you can see are the sunsets of days past

that will never greet you with a punching bag

ever again.

- linda m. crate

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Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has five 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), and splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018).

Sulyn Godsey has been writing poetry since she was very young. She has recently begun to enjoy photography as well. She is happily married and is the mother of 2 grown daughters. She works as a Student Assistance Liaison, assessing students of all ages for mental health and/or drug and alcohol issues. She and her husband own a small farm in Pennsylvania where they have a large garden, fruit trees, berry bushes, and raise their own pigs for food.