Christina Strigas
You were at this house party once where evil meets goodness. You wanted to be bad ass, so you walked on the grass. He says, this is where the party ends. You didn’t get what he meant; or mean; or is going to mean; or is meaning. Verbs bring out the worst in you, for you try to recall the actions and all you can see are the adjectives swaying from his long joint.
Open your mouth, he says. No one can see. You open your mouth and he kisses you. You thought he would blow the weed into your mouth in a romantic gesture recalling Jim Morrison – he knew how you went on and on about Jim and his poetry. He knew how you memorized his lines. He knew so much that others knew nothing about you.
You assumed boys listened when you spoke, but you realize most just looked at your tits.
Your lips are poems, he says. His sixteen-year-old tongue tasting like bad medication.
You feel nothing.
You wanted to feel weed not love.
***
Christina Strigas’s work has 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. She teaches ESL to adults at McGill University, and French at a public elementary school for The Sir Wilfred Laurier School Board. She lives in Montreal, with her husband and two children. She writes novels for The Wild Rose Press.