She was as smooth as Tarantino dialogue.
And you could tell she was dangerous.
But she seemed more content to dagger me with words
than shoot me with the guns at her hips;
maybe that's why they were penned with a point
and drawn in a deep black ink.
I thought she wanted to tie me down
'cause that's what she wanted me to think.
She talked on how she'd change her ways
and how she could help me do the same;
she spoke of working towards a living
rather than dying like a slave.
She led me to my own room,
to sheets that once were bright and red
but had now faded to maroon rust
like the blood of those long dead.
She showed me every country in the world
without us leaving from my den.
She brought me every star in the night sky
without ever reaching up a hand.
She took me around the world
in much less than eighty days,
but she was gone when the morning came.
She took my money, drugs and faith.

how the saying
of nada
tamed
my mother’s
tongue
as in

being nothing
your father
has
nada

and my sisters and I
would momentarily
wild ourselves
verbatim
to bang
on a thing
with a thing
until father

in the a.m. and late with poverty
would enter what there was
to enter

     and how flush
he would be
with fiction

She swooned and swayed,
the moonlight played
its shadows cross her face,

in tune the trees,
with June's degrees,
then joined her at her pace,

and I, the wind,
blew sighs therein,
and moved them all in place,

in symphony,
they all would be,
perfection in their grace.

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

My bare feet
stand on the linoleum floor,
sticky from the hairspray
that is used to cement
every last one of your hairs
to your head.
I could cut my finger on it -
you said so yourself.
Though it's not my finger that
is bleeding,
but rather my heart.

My ears are ringing,
my head is spinning,
and my stomach is sinking -
sinking like a ship
with its captain still on board.
Desperately, I grab for
something,
anything -
anything that will keep me
sane,
but your assault keeps coming.

Every word that is spat, I taste.
Every blow that is thrown, I feel.
I read every thought written
across your sour, distorted face.

There is only one way to stop
the blood from flowing
onto the sticky floor,
and I must act quickly.
I summon the cold from deep within
and feel it begin to rise,
first through my toes,
then my calves and
into my lower belly,
until finally,
painful relief wraps
Its icy fingers around my heart.
The out-pour of blood has ceased,
but so has the beating of my heart.