I KNOW WE CAN HAVE A BETTER WORLD by Linda M. Crate

i realized justice was a sham
when in fifth grade a boy
threatened to shoot me and my
friend, his mother called me a liar
with her blue eyes and dye job blonde
hair looking like every mean girl 
from the movies;

he only got out of school suspension
where he got to play and have time
off of school,
when his siblings got off the bus:
he and his mom waved sarcastically at 
me and i loathed them both even more—

i still think about that decades later,
wondering if me speaking up even made
a difference; if i saved anyone's life—

sometimes it makes me wish that i was
part of a different universe where was actually
justice for anyone instead of this one where
everyone tells me that this is the way things
have always been,

don't any of them still dream? do any of them
know what dreams are? i don't want to be 
a part of this simulation any longer—i know we
can have a better world.

 

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has seventeen published chapbooks the latest being: only the future knows (Alien Buddha Press, November 2025).

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