I understood that it's not enough for you to be my daughter if I'm not your father. I wiped my dirty hands on your mother's heart and hoped it was clean enough for a child. My guilt doesn't help you understand your abandonment. Because of me, you will feel their rejection as being mine. You became my parent, then softened me in my own helplessness. They will tell you that there is a lot of weakness in a woman who cries. I believe it is the courage of all mothers of men, to accept their failure. We were not taught how to love a woman.
Ana-Anca Răstășanu
You made me travel through time. You took me back to everything I could have been, but lacked the courage, boldness, and guidance to be. You took me with the enthusiasm of a child faced with a new toy, turned me all over, discovered my secret button, and opened my wings. With small steps, you first taught me to believe that I could. Then what balance is. Then, little by little, I began to rise on untrodden paths. And when I was afraid, you reminded me that a kite flies against the wind. I thank you with every word.
Monica Ciurea
last summer at the Vamă seaside resort, you put me on your motorcycle and we rushed to the first tattoo parlour we could find. We both had the same silly idea to stamp each other's hip with the print of the other's palm, a sort of compatibility code, since we both liked Fosse, Hesse, and Scorsese anyway. Then we walked proudly on the beach with our thighs glued together, so that the branded handprints could flutter like wings with fingers for feathers. On the last evening, we paid a toll to separate and fly off in different directions with one wing and one handprint each.
(Translated by Bogdan Nicola / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.