Anca Dunavete

If love is the light that dissolves all walls, why did it make these ones thicker? What you did was ultimately love, I know. Well, mixed with the quiet desperation of never making it outside the realm of Almost There. You wanted out so badly, you invented love. Love was going…

Picture this: there’s an empty space next to you at the table. You make it the shape of everything you need. Now you say ‘hello’. This is you at your best, also known as Your Strength, but you haven’t been properly introduced yet. You don’t know what it is, and you don’t…

I curl up in the empty bed. I can’t get warm. When I don’t write, the warmth trickles out little by little. My body keeps the score. ‘Have you expressed yourself lately?’ it asks. I sigh. I can’t write when I can’t feel. What am I supposed to do? My heart is…

Sure, I’m mad – but behind the anger, frustration, and hatred, there’s only sadness. The other layers aren’t even real. I made them up to cover it up. Boredom is rage spread thin and sadness is grief spread the same way. There’s just so much love inside me, and it’s…

‘How odd, I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.’ – David Foster Wallace It’s been another year. Let me pull you gently now and take a good look at you. You are vibrant and gorgeous, and your mind is insanely cool. But you say, ‘I…

I write fiction because it feels less intrusive. We invent the worlds we need to make sense of reality. It’s a safe space to enjoy the juicy goodness of the present moment, or stretch your heart open to let the vague foggy sadness out. No one has any idea what…

I want to believe in God, but I doubt that He’d believe in me if I were to make Him up again. I’ve been staring into space for so long now, and not once have I felt like we could get along again, even if I let Him exist again…

from a work in progress Towns at rest, people on their way home, intermittent patches of glitter and dark everywhere – all the little things that make up life danced restlessly through her lashes. Leaning her head against the car window, Kara felt wide awake with fear and curiosity. Houses…

When you fictionalise your life, you have to invent some of the words yourself – the way they taste, the way they sound in the air – and twist them until no one can tell what hell you pulled them out of. When they ask, you tell them you read…

Takes a deep breath and exhales. Pauses for a moment. Then begins to type. It’s been months now. It feels longer, like this has always been my life. If you knew what was raging inside me, you too would see the flat cloud formation at the top of the storm.…

From the height of my balcony, the world seems smaller, easier to tame. Easier to love. Sunlight lies across my knees. I feel like an episode of my life, one that keeps repeating. One I cannot bear to hear myself type alive and put on an imaginary shelf. ‘This past doesn’t…

The morning was only growing colder. The streets were still dark. He crept through the streets, staring as if through a window, drenched in old, haunting images of days that now seemed to never have been. He stood waiting, coughing. The cold of the night had gotten into him. The…

This piece was published in Letters of Love I hope this letter finds you alive – all senses and engines burning – and well. It might find you waiting in line at the Christmas market. It might find you taking a break from sitting in the sun. It might find…

Every second of the day is a question that only I can answer – and because it keeps asking, I am no longer giving it the truth. I say this, but it could just as easily have been something else, and the best part is that lightning does not strike…

‘I write because nobody listens’, was the first thing I noticed about her. She had scribbled this sentence on the first page of a notebook left open on the table. She had flaming red hair, wore little makeup and a loose black dress. There was a homemade sign hung on the…

‘The world is not made up of atoms; it’s made up of stories.’ – Muriel Rukeyser ‘A week? A whole damn week?’ she complained. That wasn’t what she had planned. But then again, it wasn’t she who had planned it in the first place. Rolling her eyes at the sudden, unpleasant thought,…

One day, you decide to take back the lead reins to your life. To do this, you need to go up to the top floor of the building that is you. You need to knock, say your name, befriend your inner dragon, and ask him to share the power. It’s…

The street shines glossy black after the rain. The sidewalk cafés are crowded, and vehicles hiss by – their roar constantly approaching, breaking off, then receding. I watch them and hold my breath, forgetting to blink. I am alert, but null. The restlessness of the city mirrors mine tonight, and…

Sipping on coffee, I contemplate the bunch of contradictions screaming at each other on the paper in front of me. Some tell my stories in more detail than I’d like, while others tell me the stories I’d like to hear instead. Good. It means I’ve written it all down, and…

‘Tell me everything,’ he says. It’s getting darker outside, and his room feels colder. ‘Like what?’ ‘I don’t know. Everything, from the beginning.’ I smile and bury my head in his pillow, imagining the love that could grow in his heart for the baby I was before I became his…

Sometimes little things tip me into euphoria. Sitting at a bus stop at sunset, the warm wind rushing in every direction through my dark hair, over my naked, golden skin. When I close my eyes, I’m a mermaid. The coins in my hand are seashells. I take dips into the…

He still thinks this is how I was born. How terribly naïve. Sometimes I wish he’d realise that my cells didn’t just decide to stand up and learn coolness when they put me together. That was my mind, many years later, laying out a detailed plan for how to make…

November rain is cutting through the stillness of the day, like a reminder to be present – a reminder that they are finally together, even without much to say to each other, and that maybe they shouldn’t drift apart just yet. It’s still early, and conversation is hard to hold.…

The old wooden staircase, the black bricks in the wall and the large plants on the sides of the stairs gave her goosebumps when she first entered the building. It was there, then. Her body felt heavy, wrapped in layers of questions and blank spaces that she could not shed,…

During their first months of dating, he often asked,‘What are you made of?‘and his eyes were always wide and hungry for her. She just smiled a little and said,‘I have no idea,’and kissed him with hot, burning lips. Being with her was like playing with fire, but instead of burning…

It was late November. Or April. Or August. I guess it could have been Christmas, but most cafés would have been closed – and where else would I have run into him? I’d say it was New Year’s Eve, but that would create too much pressure for one day. When…

There are nights when I still burn with passion for everything we did and everything we could have done. On those nights, I don’t sleep at all. I toss and turn for hours, feverish, longing, alive. Other nights, I sleep soundly and wake up laughing at all the ones I…

There’s a beautiful apartment above the bakery. It’s welcoming, relaxing, with a touch of elegance and sophistication. It’s where, for the first time, he said those magic words to her, and she touched his face with new love on her fingers. On the white walls of the kitchen hangs a…

He’s been staring at me for a few minutes now, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable. I tried to make a joke to show him I was fine, but he didn’t believe me. Of course he didn’t believe me. ‘What did he do to you this time?’ ‘Who’s he?’ ‘I don’t…

It’s summer, dark and quiet up here. Imagine the heat, the lights, the sounds – and the girl, curled up on the black wooden chair, chin propped on her knees, gazing absently over the city. I bend over the table to pick up the pack of cigarettes and take one…

He said he was going to write a story about us. I took it seriously. Later, I found out that it was. I was thrilled to hear that we could inspire someone to turn us into literature, even if no one would ever read it. Maybe some stories aren’t meant…

I know you’re real, but you have imagination stains all over your face. You see, I filled up all the gaps with cotton candy and fell in love with a man who brings me poetry, mystery, and desire. That’s everything I’ve ever wanted from you. I just wish I could…

It was summer when, night after night, we fell asleep with fast hearts and hurried dreams of sunlight, fresh air and brand new adventures. You kneading my spine and pulsing through my veins; me telling myself that happiness never hurt anyone and, if worst came to worst, misery is always…

In my world, I listen to my truth on every radio, decorate the walls with beautiful paintings of my most precious memories, and have large windows in every room. From here, you can see right into me. Those trees over there? I have so many stories about the ones who…

Our bodies brushed together. I was getting closer and closer. For a while, I remembered what it was like to be young and scared and to want so badly to give yourself away because you don’t know what to do with all that’s been given to you. You do it…

Art, I suppose, is when you create life and meaning out of nothing, and not everyone in the world hates it at the same time. You take the nothingness – thick and sticky – and you shape it. It’s fun and wonderful and imaginative, and it satisfies your deepest fantasy…

‘There is another world, but it is in this one.’ – William Butler Yeats ‘It’s 3 a.m.,’ I say. What I really mean is, I want to go. I don’t really mean that, but now isn’t the time. The time for what, you ask? Well, not the time to make my way…

In the beginning, he taught me about fear. I liked that one, so I decided to remember it. ‘Why do you speak of fear in the third person? Fear has no identity. You are the fear.’ He also taught me about the ugly side of love. I hated that one,…

‘How did you become you?’ he caught himself asking her. She laughed. ‘What do you mean by me? Or rather, what do you know about me so far, so I know where to start?’ He took his time. She was the slightly unusual type – his type. She could probably open her…