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.