Eight years experience,
I’ll have you know,
Been working since seven
Kinda tired of it now.
No rest for the wicked,
so I’ve been told.
“Choose, him or me girls?”
“You evil *****”
“Leave, before I call the police”
“Get out the way”
“You can take the kids with you”
He doesn’t want us.
Please, girls
Daddy doesn’t want to do this.
I can smell the lies,
they flow like water now.
She looks at me,
make him leave,
don’t worry mama,
I will.
But then I look to my right
my sisters eyes
full of unshed tears.
No, I look away,
it’s my job.

Times that we meet,
We speak
The way I prepare for you,
to turn the other cheek

Times we are apart
Conversations fill like a scar
A part of me broken
Part of me changed
A part of me complained

Evil or no evil
Thoughts fight you like a demon
A demon to me is a father to you
A mother to her
And parents

To me you are demons
Demons that claim me
Demons,
that make me feel crazy
Sometimes hazy
Lazy

A fight that isn't mine
A fight not yours
A moment wasted
No longer who I was,
before you came in

my mother hates me
my father blames me for my mothers hatred. please

they think they can hide it but I am no longer twelve years old
wondering why
my mother doesn't look up at me when I talk to her
no, I'm no longer twelve years old
wondering why
i am yelled at a double or triple or quadruple rate
of my older sister
I'm no longer a naive twelve year old
thinking my parents kept the poems i wrote for them

when i couldn't find them? you ask
well of course the wind picked them up gently like a mother
to her child (exceptions, of course)
and carried them to a better home
someone will love my art
if not you, there are desperados yearning
for a poem that is love in the purest form

i no longer have the pure love of a twelve year old
i see cracks on the wall that is my mother and father
some are my fault
they don't see mine, i filled them in with plaster
they are almost all from my parents
don't get me wrong, everything is emotional
my parents don't hurt my physical self
they think of themselves too positively for that

i am no longer a twelve year old grateful that my situation wasn't worse
if i am honest, at a young age i believed myself to
be in the greatest home in the world
a place of pure love and compassion
a family that cares more than God
i am still grateful but,
the eyes of sixteen don't see it the same way

nostalgia feels like a rotting tooth

and it won't come out; no matter how many times i
wiggle and twist
and pull at it

or when my father tells me he's
going to tie a string around it and
slam the door

or my mother threatens to send me to the dentist
its too big of a problem for an ordinary person

im attached to the rot

she is my friend; i watched her grow
and she grew with me too
plus, ive never liked leaving things behind

and i remember-
how? can i remember her if she is nothing
how? will i be able to understand the present and survive the future
without the context of the past

the rot will spread and I will endure it

even so, it hurts

When I was a child,
they buried chicken bones
in the backyard,
and when I dug them up,
they told me I had
discovered dinosaurs.

i love both my parents
but i prefer spending time with just my dad

he lets me do what i want
he very rarely says no
he does threaten to beat me for looking at him funny
but we can move past that

my mom says no to nearly everything
she criticizes and nitpicks everything i do
she makes me feel like im constantly in the wrong
it's like i have no freedom when she's around

shows my priorities, huh?
that i'd much rather be beaten then trapped

A strong hand in the soil, a heart calm and kind,
António, the wine of soul and mind.
He left too soon, but roots remain,
In fields where sunsets softly proclaim:
There is love in the Douro, with honor and pride,
And finches sing with joy far and wide.

Maria, sweet mother, like a ripened grape,
Tender yet strong, with a healing shape.
In vineyard shade and her glowing gaze,
She loves her children all her days...
From her — my heart, my deepest fire —
Was born this love for wine,
Without me ever asking or desire.

Victoria Marques, the name I chose with care,
A name of love — a fate we share.
Daughter, your grandparents, António and Maria,
Kept your dream in their hearts with pure euphoria!

A toast to memory, a kiss to the land,
And a toast as well to my daughter’s hand —
To Victoria.

Victor Marques
Douro Valley

When she was the one who loved me, she asked:

"How can you be some calm?"

Less of a question,
more of an accusation,
as all arguments possess.

I found it interesting.

I'm sure at the time
my answer was melancholy
Sad, even.

In truth, I couldn't answer.
Not properly.
Not in the moment.

The reason is simple.

I think there is something
inherently beautiful
in being a person born
from violence,
rage,
hatred.
Evil.

And through all of that
being someone who
until their last scrap patience
will choose a path of calm,
peaceful,
gentle.
Sadness.

It is easier to be angry
than it is to be sad.

I would rather be sad
than point the anger I bury
at you.

Red.
It’s not pretty on me.
Not lipstick.
Not Valentines hearts.
Not cute red sweaters or “you’re so strong compliments.”

My red is the kind that stains.
That sticks.
That screams when I try to whisper.
Red is the colour of being left.
Not once.
But over and over and over.

My mum?
Yeah, my bio mum.
She left like I was a book she stopped
reading halfway through.
But she still sends postcards.
Like that makes it better.
Like writing, “Love, Mum” at the end
wipes away the years that she wasn’t there
to love me at all.

Do you know what it feels like
to get a message from a ghost
trying to pretend she’s still real?

I don’t read them anymore.
I just stare at the handwriting and
feel nothing.
Or maybe too much.
I can’t tell the difference anymore.

Red is the rage I swallow
because screaming makes people
uncomfortable.
Because no one wants to hear
about the kid sent to boarding school at 11
like an inconvenience.
Shipped off.
Silenced.
Discarded.

Dad didn’t even fight.
Just handed me over
to a woman who never saw me as hers
and made sure I knew it.

Red is the silence between us now.
And it’s loud.
So loud it drowns out the sound of me breaking.

But the worst red?
The darkest?

Wasn’t just what they did.
It was what they took.
Two men.
People I trusted.
People who smiled at me like I mattered
before they ruined me.

I said no.
I said stop.
But they didn’t hear me—
because they weren’t listening.
They were taking.

And one of them carved a word
into my skin.
A word I won’t repeat.
Because it’s still there.
Because when I shower, I still trace it.
Like it might come off this time.
It never does.

Red is that word.
That memory.
That version of me
that I don’t know how to bring back.
Sometimes I look in the mirror
and all I see is what they left behind.

I’m still here.
Yeah.
Breathing.
Just barely.

But I think about giving it all up.
More than I say out loud.
More than anyone would guess
by the way I smile in hallways
and laugh when I’m dying inside.

Red is the part of me that wants to vanish.
That writes poems
because if I don’t put it on the page,
I might not survive the weight.

Red is major depression.  
C-PTSD.
It’s waking me up and wondering why.
Why me.
Why still.
Why now.

It’s wanting someone to hold me and mean it.
Wanting my mum to show up
in something more than postage stamps and pretend love.
Wanting my dad to say,
“I was wrong. I should’ve kept you close.”
But knowing they won’t.
Knowing they didn’t.

Red is the truth no one wants to hear.
The pain they skip over in movies.
The girl in the back of the class
with scars on her heart and skin
who’s just trying to get through the day
without breaking apart in front of everyone.

Red is me.
All of me.
Hurting.
But still breathing.
Still here.

Not because I'm strong.
Not because I want to be.
But because even though everything in me says give up,
some tiny voice
buried under the rubble
still whispers:
Wait.