“It Exhausts Me” by Linda M. Crate

it exhausts me
you wanted everything
to trickle out of me
every light to be put out
to snuff out everything
i have ever been
because to you, i was just
another conquest,
to you just a nameless body
you could claim so i’d always be yours
but you’d never be mine;
i am so tired of your name
ringing in my ears
i cannot get rid of you no matter how
many times i shower or pray—
when i bake pancakes
i think of you,
and when someone mentions coffee
i remember how you once said
my eyes were the color of coffee;
but i am exhausted of remembering
that you like green peppers, black olives,
and steak—
tired of thinking of you and everything
i lost when i loved a man
who never loved me, but mostly i am just
exhausted of never catching a break;
life is difficult and i am strong
but people like you will always exist
it exhausts me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Linda M. Crate is a writer whose works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is: More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).