Man In The Mirror

By Linda M. Crate 

The man in the mirror
ain’t so kind, always looking
for a new bride;
on the jagged teeth of seven
year’s bad luck
she’ll find she’s stuck
in the embrace
of a man who will always put
his needs above hers—
sometimes he manifests
as a vampire who will drain
you after seven years,
or a werewolf that will tear
apart her flesh after seven years,
sometimes he manifests
as the monsters in her mind that
she’s never told anybody about;
he’s a tricky fellow
that man in the mirror
sometimes he wants blood and other
times flesh—
one thing’s certain
you won’t get out alive if he grabs you
because the man in the mirror
doesn’t let go,
and he never shares
once his you’re always his
even your ghost
is his to haunt.

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About The Author

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 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). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).