i remember the lies most.

and they tell me it’s the secrets that keep us close but
my heart is tearing me down with the heavy weight of
all the empty words and the senseless screams and the fights nobody could ever win and
the secrets we guard closer than precious jewels we
are tied together with lies coming undone.

and i know if vavó were alive she’d cry at what we have become.

family photos are cartoons to me;
my eyes see picasso-distorted in black and white pretending to be colored and relaxed but
i see masks and painted-on happiness under the fake smiles i know to be
lies.

i grew up on lies.

i grew up in a portuguese-american family of love and loudness and so close enough i couldn’t breathe alone and
my life was never my own but shared by so many always in everything i am and everything i do;
years seeped in tradition and family and festas in summer and church and values and morals and
parties full of people and enough food to last a month and talking, talking, talking loud enough to wake vavó herself we
are knit together closer than music notes in a song.

and i can’t let them go.

i love you and i’m a part of all this; the craziness and laughs and the togetherness but also
the grudges we hold because of feeling we can’t let go and choose to hold onto and play with and build up and
the critical ways we judge others as if we’re jesus himself and
i am a part of this way of life of family and closeness and catholic religion and church and food and perfection and control
and the gossip and false words and empty promises we take as gospel and
lies cut into our hearts and secrets held tighter than corsets till we can’t breathe anymore and
dear god, i confess, this is who i am.

i learned from the best.

through the smoke and mirrors that blurred my vision for so many years,
i see now the lies under the words and
illusions and myths and mirages and deception and deceit can’t fool me anymore and
just because i am a part of this and it’s all i’ve ever known,
doesn’t mean i have to be this way anymore and
i realize i hate all the lies, everything fake i used to believe, and all the secrets; and
looking back on my childhood,

i remember the lies most.