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Ilinca Harja Iliescu, 16 years old, is participating in the 6th International Literary Creation Competition, from Bucharest, Romania. We are grateful for the participation and wish her success.

“If this is Love”

The purest form of pain hollows itself into my chest
The time I see a teardrop rolling down your marble face,
Dripping down your neck and leaving in its path no trace,
Smudging your eyes red over a sad word that I said.

My soul starts to mourn itself and bleed out of my body,
Leaving my old, crumbling ribcage to form dust behind,
To serve as fleeting warning for the whole of humankind
That the soul I so adore forever will and deserves more.

The fact that only for you I will never be enough
Settles inside my mind and makes its home into my thought;
The guilt on which I trip for not being what you bought;
The emptiness of me is what you say you’ve always sought.

If this is love, then I am yours. 


“They All Sing a Song of You”

 
These songs sing a song of you;
The only one my ear can hear,
The only one who can slip through
Inside my mind and bend it to
A child’s one which knows no fear.

These songs hold onto what’s dear,
Leaving no space to undo
All the words I wrote to you;
Stamp my letter with your seal,
Filled with reasons for “I do.”

These songs feed my garden’s bloom,
Blow my sky’s sorrows to clear,
Call the birds to sing the sheer
Truth of being sung into 
Believing you’ll always be here.

These songs have always been our seer;
They will play inside tomb,
They will play in the world’s womb,
Showing me what’s there to feel,
Showing my soul what to do. 

 
“Stay”

The colors of your life in play;
Stay
In the moment, with your eyes on the painting you display;
Stay
And watch the colors you say that I lay,
Stay
Watch them cry and try to fill the gap of my soul away;
Stay
Fill it with your skin and presence,
Stay
Let my mind breathe and see your painting’s true essence;
Stay	
With me and our eyes meeting,
Stay
With our colors still weeping,
When our tears and smiles through our painting start bleeding.
Stay here;
Take your colors in your hands and paint my soul and smear-
Smear it with the parts of your mind that you’ve always feared;
Let my painting become yours and color my mind real-
Brush my skin- That’s the only way I can know you’re still here.