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    • A Fire of Words
    • Editor's Note 2022 >
      • The Floor Wallows Lower
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      • 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)
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Ocean
​By: Dana Aparicio

Picture

I have loved you for the last time,
an intoxication of softened memories.
It inks red but it is tinted blue,
it is a promise to the waves,
and the breathless daze of drowning
and gasping for air.

It is aging, your olive skin, its vibrance.
Lost among all the grim gray
you tried your hardest to escape.
They're darkening, your eyes.
I press my thumbs, softly, on the root of your nose
and slowly drift down to the edge of your jaw,
leaving a lingering warmth on the bitter spots.

Your chest rises and falls just as the ocean does before dusk,
slow then fast then all at once.
You are lost in the wayside,
in between the sea rocks,
at the edge of the ocean,
where the sand meets the waves.
I rest my heart on the edges, too sharp,
and draw your face in the sand, too soft.

It has been a long, long time
since I have memorized the flow of your veins,
the waves have subsided and the canals do not flow.

I have loved you for the last time.
Before dawn, I found you tied amidst the sea grass,
swaying along with your hair as it blew with the air,
your hand inching towards the ocean that longed for you
enough to not swallow you in.

The ocean wept at my door and flooded my lungs.
Gasping, it promised to bury your heart under the corals,
so it could hear it under the moon.

So I could hear it from my windowsill,
curtains in my fist,
weeping at the mist.

The ocean has lost you for the last time
and I will look for you for a lifetime.

I awoke to seagrass in my garden,
growing on our pale walls,
through the cracks of our floorboards.
A seagrass anklet appeared at the edge of our bed
the same day the tide started up again,
you are free.
Your essence is the rhythm of the ocean,
crashing and cowering at my feet.
I have yet to love you for the last time.


Writer's Statement: These poems are about coping with loss.
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