The day before my birthday

I cried most of the morning, stopping the voices.
I wanted to kill you, but I married you instead.
I had so much hope, yet I knew it was as useless
as loving without receiving.
I stabbed you, but you did not bleed.
You tasted like salty jokes,
eternal nightmares, refreshments
at an unknown bar.

I smiled the other half of the day, buying kitchen stools.
I cleaned out the basement, mopped the dusty dark floors.
They reflect the on-going days
that turn to the silence of the poems.
I wrote another story in my head,
it felt safe there.
No one criticizes its awful plot.

Sell a stainless steel pot for five dollars
and people want to negotiate?
How low is society? How poor?
Lacking to smell the danger like a dog,
listening to poets who can’t write a poem.
How sad is your existence when you
resist me?

Forty-nine is a number, nineteen-sixty eight
is a year, do you fall into a label now?
Shall I? Be a hashtag poet now.
Refresh my dying feed.
I went into the night eons ago,
with pleated skirts and knee-high socks,
you lifted my innocence up in a car.
How will I ever reveal the truth to anyone?
It dies with me, this love.
It lived with me, this love.

Photo Credit: danabooo Flickr via Compfight cc

Written by 

Christina Strigas is an author and poet, raised by Greek immigrants, who has written four poetry books. Her poetry book LOVE & VODKA was featured by CBC Books in, “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List: 68 Poetry Collections Recommended by you.” Her most recent poetry book, LOVE & METAXA, has garnered positive reviews, including Pank Magazine. Strigas’s poems have appeared in Montreal Writes, Feminine Collective, Neon Mariposa Magazine, Pink Plastic House Journal, BlazeVOX, Thimble Lit Magazine, Twist in Time Literary Magazine, The Temz Review, and Coffin Bell Journal, among others. Her poem, “Dead Wife” was nominated for best of the net 2020. In Spring 2022, she will be releasing her fifth poetry book by Free Lines Press, a French indie magazine that publishes experimental poetry. Twitter: @christinastriga Instagram : @c.strigas_sexyasspoet Facebook: Christina Strigas Author

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2 thoughts on “The day before my birthday

  1. refresh my dying feed
    I went into the night eons ago
    with pleated skirts and knee-high socks

    wow, this grabbed me and pulled me in. This is powerful and eloquent. Beautiful, Chrissy

  2. Ummm, just yeah. I followed your story in my mind and felt every thought. Laughing over the five dollar pot, and crying because I, too, let him lift my innocence in a car. Where else to give permission to allow the words to tumble from your mind but while mopping a dusty basement floor?
    xD.

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