I'm Still Looking for Myself

Fabiola Stoi
They told me I could be more beautiful, so I modelled myself to be a model. It wasn't enough. They told me a woman makes a career, so I dug deep, loaded wagons of overtime, and here I am moving forward. I eat files, breathe files. And I climb the corporate ladder. In the office on the top floor I find a large mirror from which a stranger is looking at me. I leave her with the files and go out on the terrace. I'm hitchhiking and a seagull pulls up with a screeching of its wings. I only go as far as the first one, he throws to me hastily. It's fine with me, I say. And I climb.

Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
 in the falling leaves, in the warm rain, in the late autumn light, I go into the house and open all the drawers, I do puzzles, on the carpet, from forgotten photos, I lift the blanket, but the bed sheet is too spread out to have hidden myself there, I get angry, I throw myself, as long as I am, after a butterfly that flies happily and rummage through the trees, I take the clouds in a row, I sit on the edge of one and I climb, with both hands, among the stars. I don't have a chance, I've had a good time. In the morning, I break the mirror, leave my mask on a chair and leave.
 
 Diana Cornea
The sun and the moon kissed behind the heavenly haystack. I crawled under the haystack up close the horizon. Ionel and Sânzi were kissing passionately. Tii, I would have put my hands on my hips if I hadn't been stuck to the ground. I kept my eloquence and something nagging in my throat and started it up again. Ouch, said Dîrîbală's Stan, receiving a foot in the eye. We look at the stars over the haystack. Each with a straw in his mouth and his hands under his head. What do you want to be when you grow up? Green citizen, Stan replies. You? I want to be like now.

(Translated by Andreea Maria Liceanu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)