princess of the sun

By Linda M. Crate

i never really knew
how to express how
i felt for you
or if i should,

a part of me was unsure
of whether or not i should
confess;

i tried to pray the gay
out of me but turns out i’m
still pansexual
regardless of how hard
i pray—

my mother knew,
i think;
she told me twice that i better
not be a lesbian—

i’m not,
but I’m also not straight;

and you were the first
woman crush i had that wasn’t
a celebrity—

it scared me so badly,
thought i was going to hell;

and then we had that
misunderstanding and we
didn’t talk for years and i saw
that friend request and a part
of me had a panic attack
because i’ve written so many
poems about you about all the
love and the yearning and the ache
of it all—

i wonder if you read any of
those poems,
a part of me hopes not;

but if you have just know i always
thought you were the
prettiest princess of the sun.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer in the U.S. whose works have been published in a myriad of magazines online and in print.