Hot Dish Magazine
  • Home
  • About
  • Staff
    • Staff 2021 -22
    • Staff 2020
    • Staff 2019
    • Staff 2019
  • Issues
    • A Fire of Words
    • Editor's Note 2022 >
      • The Floor Wallows Lower
      • Cornflowers
      • Erudite
      • That One Morning
      • mom, im afraid
      • selenophilia
      • Roses and Rainbows
      • If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?
      • Rochester
      • Crown of Branches
      • Stairs to the Sea
      • A Poem Written Entirely From Advertisements
      • Pyromania
      • silhouette of a bird against winter stars
      • thunderstorm in the bedroom
      • A Night in Recovery
      • sleeping gypsie
      • paper dolls&goodbyes
      • We Are Women
      • Village Air
      • Sunshine's Laughter
      • the male gaze
      • The Forensic Entomologist
      • Lacking
      • Drowning
      • Adelie
    • Create the Wonders We Dream (2021)
    • Editor's Note >
      • Zove
      • I'm Sorry
      • Fake Smile
      • My Friend the Balloon
      • Eyes Intertwined
      • Perfect
      • Only a Moment
      • A Dangerous Word
      • My Dreams
      • The Last 100 Meters
      • The Green Void (Villanelle)
      • The Whimsical Galaxy (Sestina)
      • The Silent Kindness
      • Pressure
      • Table on the Hill
      • The Yukon
      • The Shore
      • Repentance
      • Her and I
      • Infections of the Soul
      • Threads
      • Dream of a High Schooler
      • Empty
      • little flame
      • scars
      • black and white
      • The Cat
      • Joy
      • Sweet Honey Bee Stings
      • If There Were One Day
      • Delete
      • Our Hearts to Central Vietnam
      • him or Him?
      • Ocean
      • Es Llaner Beach
      • Sewn Together
      • Rain
      • Yes, I Like
      • The Legacy of the Moon
      • The Wind Whimpers
      • From Here I See
      • To Feel Clean
      • Red
      • Survival
      • Substance
      • Golden Lies
      • Midnight Tango
      • Ode to a Spleen
      • Modern Siren
      • The Night's Diamond Tears
      • Beats In Double Time
      • A Day in the Flight
      • Carved By Venus
      • Lifeline
      • Everest
      • Education
      • How Much of Reality Can Be Observed
      • What is a Spork
      • What is the difference between love and in love
      • What would you have wanted? me to say
      • Planet Caravan
      • The Journey of a Minute
      • The Circus of Scars
      • Mosaic
      • Color
      • Love and Acceptance
    • Colors I Never Knew Existed (2020)
    • Her Voice Remains (2017)
    • Watch Every Second (2018)
    • Words Become Reality (2019)
  • Blog
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About
  • Staff
    • Staff 2021 -22
    • Staff 2020
    • Staff 2019
    • Staff 2019
  • Issues
    • A Fire of Words
    • Editor's Note 2022 >
      • The Floor Wallows Lower
      • Cornflowers
      • Erudite
      • That One Morning
      • mom, im afraid
      • selenophilia
      • Roses and Rainbows
      • If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?
      • Rochester
      • Crown of Branches
      • Stairs to the Sea
      • A Poem Written Entirely From Advertisements
      • Pyromania
      • silhouette of a bird against winter stars
      • thunderstorm in the bedroom
      • A Night in Recovery
      • sleeping gypsie
      • paper dolls&goodbyes
      • We Are Women
      • Village Air
      • Sunshine's Laughter
      • the male gaze
      • The Forensic Entomologist
      • Lacking
      • Drowning
      • Adelie
    • Create the Wonders We Dream (2021)
    • Editor's Note >
      • Zove
      • I'm Sorry
      • Fake Smile
      • My Friend the Balloon
      • Eyes Intertwined
      • Perfect
      • Only a Moment
      • A Dangerous Word
      • My Dreams
      • The Last 100 Meters
      • The Green Void (Villanelle)
      • The Whimsical Galaxy (Sestina)
      • The Silent Kindness
      • Pressure
      • Table on the Hill
      • The Yukon
      • The Shore
      • Repentance
      • Her and I
      • Infections of the Soul
      • Threads
      • Dream of a High Schooler
      • Empty
      • little flame
      • scars
      • black and white
      • The Cat
      • Joy
      • Sweet Honey Bee Stings
      • If There Were One Day
      • Delete
      • Our Hearts to Central Vietnam
      • him or Him?
      • Ocean
      • Es Llaner Beach
      • Sewn Together
      • Rain
      • Yes, I Like
      • The Legacy of the Moon
      • The Wind Whimpers
      • From Here I See
      • To Feel Clean
      • Red
      • Survival
      • Substance
      • Golden Lies
      • Midnight Tango
      • Ode to a Spleen
      • Modern Siren
      • The Night's Diamond Tears
      • Beats In Double Time
      • A Day in the Flight
      • Carved By Venus
      • Lifeline
      • Everest
      • Education
      • How Much of Reality Can Be Observed
      • What is a Spork
      • What is the difference between love and in love
      • What would you have wanted? me to say
      • Planet Caravan
      • The Journey of a Minute
      • The Circus of Scars
      • Mosaic
      • Color
      • Love and Acceptance
    • Colors I Never Knew Existed (2020)
    • Her Voice Remains (2017)
    • Watch Every Second (2018)
    • Words Become Reality (2019)
  • Blog
  • Submit
  • Contact

Es Llaner Beach
​By: Dana Aparicio

Picture
In Es Llaner beach, somewhere, there is a house by the edge of the sea.
Or was. It might not be there anymore.
It was a place I visited a lot in my youth when I needed to escape,
feel close enough to the town I would never reach.
I found it by accident and yet it did not feel like one,
it was open and furnished and it was a home to someone before me.
I stood by the windowsill and reached out towards the sun before it could hide,
trying to grab the sun by its rays so I could take a piece of it with me,
I didn't realize I had been yearning for that type of warmth my entire life.

The ocean rippled as your boat approached the edge of the house, the window, where I was.
Your skin was honeyed and your eyes light and I understood what it meant to
feel like you have known someone for a lifetime.
My dear, you left me, you left me, you left me.
I suppose like the pale-faced moon leaves the tide; you did not owe me anything.

It feels like I had years to prepare myself for this.
Back then you would always talk about the world as if it was yours,
and I would always try to be ready for when it would be.
And yet, here I am, in the same place you left me,
in the same dress,
waiting for you to realize I would never leave,
even if you did.

The night you told me you would leave, the ocean roared and churned,
almost trying to stop your boat and the inevitable end of us.
I knew nothing I could say would make you stay so I let you leave,
pressed my fingertips to my lips and pressed them to the warmth of your skin,
the warmth I had been missing my entire life.
It was my promise to return but not stay.
The sun rests its head on the town I grew to love and yet
you did not return to the one that loved you.


Writer's Statement: These poems are about coping with loss.
Previous
Table of Contents
Next

Nourished in the Heartland. Served across America.


E-mail

hotdishmagazine@bvu.edu