we dance the hula at the hotel luau

Micro-fiction
Written By David Estringel

by Melissa Llanes Brownlee

and we dance the hula and we dance the hula and we don’t tell our stories not the ones you want to know about not the ones about gods about wars about worship about life about death we dance the hula of flowers of love of beauty because to taste the truth as you sip your mai tais and pina coladas would bitter you make you run back to your hotel room to your plane to your home on a continent we’ll never be a part of wishing we’d just made fun of you with a coconut shell bra instead

Photo of Melissa Llanes Brownlee

BIO: Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work published and forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Moon City Review, Redivider, and The Adroit Journal, and honored in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Read Hard Skin (2022) and Kahi and Lua (2022) and check out her new collection, Bitter over Sweet (2025), from Santa Fe Writers Project. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.

David Estringel
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