Valentina Rîndunică is participating in the International Literary Creation Competition, 7th Edition, from Iași, Romania and is 36 years old. We thank her for her participation and wish her success.

The dance of letters

I sit at my desk in the black-blueish dark. A lone 
writer ready to embark; armed with crisp, carved,
chipped old letters in a worn burlap sack, plain 
papers, a lamp and silence, my dearest soundtrack.
‘Letters can’t dance’, people would stiffly say. 
I’d chuckle, then gently gaze away. ‘Do they?’ 

I clear my throat and hum. Just sounds, no words. 
Through veins, from heart to chest, then throat, 
an ancient song arises. Old since forever, though
just invented. Roaring like thunder, a whisper 
barely detected. Under the star-lit sky, round 
the lamp’s fire, sang countless times 
before me, with passion and desire. 
Mystic, somewhere between lost and dream, 
that’s how it sounded – this grave guttural hymn.

Like playing the drums, my palms hit the desk. 
My foot keeps the pace on the floor, a swift 
rhythm my letters adore. Spilt from the sack, 
they rise and dance, secret and sacred,  
away from anyone's eyes. Howling wind, 
rattling bones, rustling leaves, floating away,
driving through fog without lights on, 
the taste of lover’s lips, last goodbye.

I end the chant, which ends the spell too. Without 
the magic, my letters fell anew. Exhausted and frosted,
they dwell on the papers where they flamed untamed. Filled 
rows after rows. Wet words strung spaced like lined up melted 
black-blueish birds. Ink still flows up to my elbows and toes.

‘Letters can’t dance’, people would stiffly say. 
I’d chuckle, then gently gaze away. ‘Do they?’ 
What do they know, what do they know
About my letters dancing fast or slow?
Sing them the right chant; letters will glow
and will dance dances of bliss or woe.


Stitched lips

In the village of clay figurines, for generations, grownups with stitched lips spun 
wool all day and made thin, tough threads, cut later in lassos or rolled into balls.
When the little clay girl was born, the whole village gathered. For she was 
born with a free mouth, and free mouths must be taught when to talk.

And she spoke too much and asked way too many questions. So, grownups would gather.
They’d hunt with a lasso the words out of norms, stifle their echo in dust and pass once
with a needle and thread over the little clay girl’s lips. “How dare you ask this?
It’s not nice to say that. Not appropriate to say the other. Shut up, behave.”

But she kept talking, and growing, and singing and laughing. For she had ideas 
and things to point out. Her spirit was wild, her wings were spread wide. She wanted 
to fly but was hunted. One by one, the stitches covered entirely the clay girl’s lips, 
the spoken words were lesser and lesser and the grownups were happy. “Shut up, behave.”

A ball of thread guarded the ball of unspoken words stuck in the clay woman’s throat. 
Suffocated, reduced to silence, she was finally perfect. She knew how to shut up and behave. 
But when enough was enough, with a pair of scissors, she freed her stitched lips and unleashed 
the song of her free voice. For where there’s a needle and thread, there’s also a scissor.


Starving drought

The cracked soil mourns for some water. Sun melted and poured hot on earth, covering
the village in sultry silence. It killed all plant’s roots and any gentle zephyr. Barefoot, children 
ran over the boiling fields. With their mouths dry, they ceased asking for something.
	
Wells bubbled with hot mud; the river dried up. Humans and animals drank from same puddles, then
when their shadows grew smaller and smaller, they fell one by one like light little feathers. Old 
village is a song of woe. The poorest one’s hopes got stuck in the mud, the wealthy ones fled.

The door to the room where our children used to play is shut. For a while now, 
door and I, we act like two magnets, same pole, repelling each other. The doorknob 
has stiff thorns on it, not letting me touch it. It’s covered in sand and in silence. 

No giggles, no laughs, no tears left in my eyes. I enter. An invisible lady 
disguised in kindness welcomes and hugs me dearly, only to suck every 
little crumb of hope and joy still left in me, leaving my body to collapse. 

I lay on the carpet. Numb from hunger, thirst and pain, like a delicious dessert on 
a shiny tray for the drought-lady to devour. Long crooked, cold colourless fingers grasp 
my body and snatch it piece by piece. Shoulders, throat, legs, heart, she tears me apart. 

How many lives do you still need to take to fill in your greedy belly and leave? She laughs with lust
and plays with our fate like it’s a throw of dice. Sleep eases the hunger. I’ll wait on the floor for 
sunrise to come, defrost my body and start all over again the thirst and hunger game.