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Oh, my heart
how did you find me in the dark?

Was it the stark white
shine of my bones
through my chest?

I wasn't really trying to do a
"Someone stole my heart" cliche-
                      It just fit in that way,

and I'm not sure if I'm saying
what I need to say or just
rhyming needless words and verbs
like needles swimming threadless
in something they never meant to sew

So, here we are.

I've done my best to stay hidden,

I've ridden inky tides
on moonless nights

Lost fights with myself
and won a few

And for a while I smiled
When I thought of me
and didn't think of you

And it was fine,
so fine

To live like someone
who hasn't had their head
cracked open by primordial
forces and the odds
of gods and goddesses

To be honest,
I never thought I'd promise this

But to you, my nameless, shapeless
faceless, fateless companion. . .

I'll walk with you forever,
even if we never get back home

and I won't accept a stand-in
It hurts when i breathe
It burns when i see
All of me-

Ashes scattered to the sea

No matter the pattern
You wear on your sleeve
I fall down dead
And wake relieved

Ashes, ashes
It's all ******* ashes

this house we've built,
The bodies we put inside,
Nothing stays alive

This feeling of godly emptiness
Will pass

The feeling of my hand on your back
Wont last

The past is here
Along with the next
Phrase i speak
Between nicotine therapy

The future is here
With the king and queen
To let loose a vermouth mixed
Drink of the unseen

The obscene lingers meaninglessly
With the scene

With the invisible host,
The holy ghost

The most i could ask
Is to feel the ground beneath my feet
Once more

To unlock familiar doors
In familiar places

And to greet familiar faces

I dont know you yet
But i knew you before

I dont know you yet
But i love you all the more,

For our cause and effect
Is defecting to the raw rocks
And wrecks
On the distant shore

Tell me once more,

Did i meet you just now
Or do i remember you from before?
You're so close I almost taste you
That sweet air upon your lips
And feel the gentle curve that runs through
From your neck down past your hips

Your eyes flash hints of mystery
And your hairs sprawled all around
I look forward to our history
When I finally pin you down.
I can flirt with the best of them
and maybe I have
I can lust and desire
I can move mountains to impress and cross seas to give smiles
I can dance and spin and dip and dazzle
I can wink and smile and buy you a drink
I can get the door walk you home conduct myself with all the chivalry and charm of your favourite rom com

But to love

To love in the way I wish to love and be loved
Both feet deep end too fast too much overwhelming nonsensical hopeless love
I fear it will be a fools errand to search it out again

….but I’m glad I know it exists
….I'm glad you know too
~
September 2025
HP Poet: irinia
Age: 47
Country: Romania


Question 1: We warmly welcome you to the HP Spotlight, irinia. Please tell us about your background?

irinia: "I live in a country with a difficult past, I have complicated memories of the XXth century. I studied foreign languages and literatures (English & German), British cultural studies, psychology and psychotherapy. I worked as a cultural journalist for some time, and as an English teacher for a decade. I love working as a psychotherapist, it is a humbling honour to get to know and be with people in a profound way. I am the mother of a spirited teenage daughter whom I am in love with. I am a highly sensitive person which is a blessing and a curse because I am often times moved by life in an intense way. I am from the Balkans so my taste in everything is rather eclectic."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

irinia: "I wrote my first poem as a teenager, and I’ve been writing since then discontinuously, whenever poetry came to me. There were periods of intense writing and also long periods of silence. It was difficult to see myself as a poet until relatively recent. On HP I've been since 2010 or 2011, I am not sure, I have to check my first post. This site and the community supported me to keep writing. I owe to HP the existence of my book of poetry called "Psychic retreat" published by Europe Books last year. Thank you Eliot for keeping HP running and thank you to all of you for keeping HP alive. I witnessed this community changing, growing, descending into chaos sometimes. I enjoy the diversity of styles."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

irinia: "I am inspired by everything that moves me, especially people, stories, the natural world, history. Poetry simply happens to me, words and images start pouring down in my mind, so I just write them down as they come. I don’t rewrite or work with conscious intention on any poem because I don’t have time to be a „serious“ writer, who has the discipline and toil of writing. At some point poetry started coming to me in English, perhaps because my readings were mostly in English. I think poetry is a way of containing or transforming my emotional processes as for me poetry happens in the presence of feelings, and I am also observing a tendency to be more reflexive or abstract as if when I write there is a witness inside. I feel more and more that I am interested in writing about politics and society too."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

irinia: "It means a lot, I am afraid it is difficult to capture it into words. The poetry of other people touches me deeply, fascinates me, gives me the feeling of awe. It was my constant companion, it was a mirror, I found out about myself through resonance with other poets. Poetry captures the depth of life, our dreams, struggles, aspirations, our joy and our pain, creates alternative worlds from words. It captures the pulse of inner reality while it also mystifies it. It is a space of freedom and play for me. It is a protest. It is an attempt at destroying and recreating the world captured in normal language and used concepts. It is perhaps a measure of our humanity, vulnerability, resilience."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

irinia: "I will start with William Shakespeare as I love his use of language and wit. I love Japanese haiku poetry, their ineffable simplicity is mesmerizing. There are many poets that I adore: Rumi, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Charles Bukowski, William Blake, Robert Browning, T.S. Elliot, the English and German Romantic poets, Nichita Stănescu (Romania), Ana Blandiana (Ro), Florin Iaru (Ro), Mircea Cărtărescu (Ro), Ioana Ieronim (Ro), Gellu Naum (Ro), Nora Iuga (Ro), Paul Celan, Mary Oliver, David Whythe, Anne Sexton, Tibor Zalan (Hungary), Jean-Pierre Siméon (a wonderful poet), Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Ana Akhmatova, Viktor Neborak (Ukraine), Marjana Savka (Ukraine), Hrytsko Chubai (Ukraine), John O’Donohue, Rachel Bluwstein, Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Zach, Wislawa Szymborska (Poland), Mahmud Darwish (Palestine), John Donne, Friedrich Hölderlin, Reiner Maria Rilke, Joseph Brodsky, Marina Tzvetaeva, Octavio Paz, Garcia Lorca, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Primo Levi."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

irinia: "I love art in all forms, it moves me and it bemuses me, it stimulates my creativity. I love photography and taking photos, I attended courses in my youth. I am fascinated by cosmos and cosmology, I love physics. I love stand-up comedy, music, dancing, hiking on the mountains. I am interested in history, I am fascinated by the becoming of the world. I am fascinated by the individual and collective psyche, I think this is something that has left a mark on my poetry."


Carlo C. Gomez: “We would like to thank you irinia, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”

irinia: "Many thanks to Carlo for this series and to you all for being here!"




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know irinia better. We most certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #32 in October!

~
EVERYTHING
will find resolution—
we just might not like
the outcome.
⚰️
HER
i have seen the heaven created in you—  
one they could not understand.  
and so they named it wrong,  
because they could not hold what they feared in their hand.  

you were fire, and i the very same.  
they said we’d burn the world down—  
but all we ever wanted was to be warm.  

her touch: psalm.  
her gaze: prayer.  
and still, they call it sin—  
as if holiness can’t wear soft skin and hold my hand.  

they could not understand  
that when she loves me,  
the sky listens more closely  
and the stars stay a little longer.  

her eyes, gently pulling me in—  
her gaze sweeping me beneath her tides  
as i pry to the surface  
to utter her sacred name.  

and even the breath feels borrowed,  
as if the universe conspired to see it through.  

how can my sin be love?  
oh, they would never understand.
i wish i could listen to my heart and block the world's voice
I'm glad that fate brought us together, even if it was very brief.
The time we shared the memories we made, hopefully wont turn to grief.

Do not be sad for me, for what could have been for without it we would forever wonder what if.

The looks you gave me, your head on my chest.
Sweet loves embrace.
My hand running through your hair, you were my rest.

Desperately trying to hold on to what little time is left.
The pain sometimes, I feel in my chest.

The laughs we shared, the tears we bared, I regret nothing. If I could go back in time,  the only thing I would change is that I would have found you sooner.
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