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Writing by Richa Gupta // Photograph by Catarina Inacio 

Writing by Richa Gupta // Photograph by Catarina Inacio 

we may not have dragon tattoos. but

we are all still perfect victims. slight, hair

curling down our backs, toes twitching

confusedly. feminine. some have liquor running

through their veins, others wake up in

their beds and see a monster meandering about.

or as they walk down the street, clutching a cloth

bag, a hundred feet from home. wide-eyed.

 

you are a doll. their eyes say, let me pull

your lining apart. strands of thread come loose,

colors blend into one, black. always black, warm,

sticky, darkness. empty vessels, always. for we

are perfect victims. if we speak, we hurt, if we

stand, we risk getting blood everywhere.

 

we may not have dragon tattoos, we

are not salandar with ink artfully injected

in our flesh, but. I speak with pain, we

are vulnerable by birth.

 

the one time I do not strive for

perfection. in victimization.

Richa Gupta

Richa Gupta is an Editor of The Ramona Collective at Ramona Magazine for Girls, and a teen poet and blogger. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Moledro Magazine, an international literary magazine. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Literary Orphans, The Missing Slate, New Plains Review, and Poetry Quarterly, among others. She is a blog contributor with The Huffington Post and a youth blogger with Voices of Youth. Richa was born in 1999 and resides in Bangalore, India.

Catarina Inácio

Catarina Inácio is a photographer from Portgual. About her work, Catarina says:

“My dream is to become a great photographer. I want to show my feelings with photography, and create new stories based in my daily life. And I’m proud of my evolution in photography. I live with my issues and insecurities, and sometimes it’s hard to communicate and smile to life, although I know that I can’t give up, and I have to keep doing what makes me happy and live everyday with patience and calm. Photography is one of my forms of therapy, it is what makes me happy and it is what makes me feel free.” See her work on Flickr.

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