Illustration by Lucy Salgado

This morning I woke up with a sudden urge to write

As if my fingers automatically found their voice outside my body

And began to type letters

To my twenty two year old self who still can’t wait

to meet the boy of her dreams

in a random cafe with bad music and expensive drinks

To the fiancée who waits on a terminal without a suitcase

To the other woman

To my always unimpressed mother

And my always addicted to pain

friends.

To the girl everyone wants to date

but no one asks out

Because a picture says more than 1000 words

and less than a million chances of heartbreak.

To the stranger everyone regards as a snob because she doesn’t feel like talking when she has nothing to say

To the woman who showed up for a sleazy photo shoot and filled the room with her fragrance

like a song by Kate Bush slowly fills up the room and turns the walls into velvet

And the falling dust into snow

Illustration by Lucy Salgado

To the French man who flirted with me in line at the cashier’s for fifteen minutes

he carried flowers, wine, bread, and his hopes in his shopping basket

To the lovers who kissed on the train platform at Pernety in December 2014

And became only lovers left alike

In my first black and white Polaroid picture

To the priest who told me to go home and break-up with my boyfriend when I was looking for ways out of this life

To the woman who sold her last belongings on the street

In the snow

When I was thirteen

And punched my heart because she was the bravest person to face pride better than the cold

To the old lady with red lipstick on her teeth in a high street fashion store who grabbed my arm and said

She will rather have new boots instead of new prescription drugs for her brain

To the scientist who fucked my heart

And never touched my thigh

To my father’s sister

Who fell in love at 46

And writes me on Facebook

To the house painter who told me one summer to go out, watch TV and dance

Because this house is too empty and tall to have my youth sewn into tapestry

And old sofas.

To the girl at work who came in with her new born baby and made me cry

Because I am a woman who wants to let live

As much as most women.

Illustration by Lucy Salgado

To the taxi driver who spoke my language in a different country

And took me home safe

Because what else is there that we seek

Other than safety in strangers

To the lives I wish I led

But never did

Because I’m still learning to let go

Of everything and everyone I set my high hopes on.

Like spiders.

To my Grandpa

Who was a charmer

I wish you took me to prom

And wrote me letters like the one F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his 11 year old daughter.

To fast absorbing magnesium stearate in 1600 mg,

We may all be writers here

But you are the spark we end up writing for,

The gap we fill in the world with ourselves

Ultimately

The reader.

—

 “A Poem To All Poets”, Berlin, 2015, dedicated to the one person who believed most in my writing.

Ioana Cristina Casapu is the Managing Director of Art Parasites Magazine. She likes Brian Eno, airports and never says no to a good old Gin&Tonic. 

Read all her stories and poetry here.

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