i was planted

hot air balloons
always seemed magical to me
i want to ride in one, one day;
one of my dreams
i have yet to
to accomplish on my list of never ending
adventures i need to go on—
but one day
i will go, i tell myself;
because despite my fear of heights
i have a love for clouds, for blue skies,
for sunsets, for sunshine;
i want to know the fire that lifts into
the sky like the sun rising
east each morning—
i want to kiss the clouds and know
all their secrets and myths and truths
to see if i can reconnect to roots
of my brother and sister stars
for i am a daughter of the moon
her fires have always burned me open
forcing me to bloom sometimes
when i thought i was buried
i was planted.

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).