There are a few things

They never tell you in the guidebooks

Things they don’t want you to know

About this paradise we call home

They don’t tell you about the three inch flying cockroaches

That fly by night and hit your window glass

with a large thunk

Or the clicking sound the geicos make at night

When you try to sleep

They don’t tell you they poop everywhere

That they glide up your wall

And they own you house and home

 

They don’t warn you about the cane spiders

Six inches across

That glare at you and then run

Way too fast to be caught or killed

They haunt your dreams and steals your calm

The first time you find one in your bedroom

 

They don’t warn you about red dirt

Blown through open windows

How it gets on everything

You dust and it comes right back

Like it never left and how after a few weeks

You let it win.

 

They don’t tell you about the trades

That blow sand on you on a beach afternoon

Blinding you, beating at your skin

Or the blistering sand that burns your toes

If you dare to take off your slippers

 

They don’t warn you that so much perfection

So much beauty

So much perfect weather can eat at you

Make you pray for rain

Or Snow

Or a colored leaf to drift from the tree to land at your feet.

 

They don’t tell you that one day

That fantastic rainbow

Swept across a sunlit cloud

Would become almost ho hum

That after the thousandth perfect sunset

You don’t seek them out anymore

They don’t tell you about the rats or the mice

Or the small cockroaches that fall out of trees

They don’t talk about any of that in the guidebooks

They don’t want you to know the truth

They want you to come

To spend your money

To wander the beach

And savor the rainbowed sunset

To feel the trades caress your face

To feel the warm sun kiss your skin

If they tell you about $10.00 milk

about $4.00 gas

About rent so high it hurts to pay

You may not come

They sell you the hula

But it’s just a dance

The luau is just a meal

Ah Maui, you are seductive

As tempting as any heaven

As hot as any hell

I would hate you if I didn’t love you so.