Just like my short stories, these poems live between two worlds and languages. Most of them were originally written in Romanian when I was a teen and then translated by me now, trying to preserve their original rhythm. The few pieces from the early 2000s were composed in English for a writing class. At the time,…
“You were stone white, so delicate / Lost in the cold / You were always so lost in the dark.” The Cure _________________________________________________________________________________ He was leaning against the wall smoking. One leg was bent with his foot pressed against the wall, as if he wanted to make himself smaller or invisible, pushing his body into…
“Is it life or just to play my worries away? / You’re all the things I’ve got to remember / You’re shying away / I’ll be coming for you anyway.” A-ha ____________________________________________ Cecilia stood in front of the mirror with her green eyes wide open. Conscious of her breath, she inhaled and exhaled slowly, grounding…
“Love is the truth, I realize / Not a stream of pretty lies / To use us up / And waste our time.” The Lightning Seeds _________________________________________ Across the dining room table, she clutched her phone while he flipped through a stack of old photographs, each of them pretending not to notice the other. He…
“Tell me if you want to see / A world outside your window / A world outside your window isn’t free.” Tanita Tikaram ________________________________________ In a dictatorship, creativity is your lifeline. My high school in communist Romania was a clever deception with two worlds: the one inside, where the Party controlled everything, and the one outside,…
