Locations

The assignment is to write about a landscape or place that exists in your thesis using tangible details - this is supposed to help me link my poems possibly. So here we go:

There are three locations throughout most of my poems: The Marshall Islands, Hawaii, and Oakland. Mostly, it's hawaii and the marshall islands. But I'm trying to do a bit more on Oakland.

Marshall Islands is a cluster of atolls in the pacific that are all tiny, with no mountainous landscape just flat all the way - it's kind of like someone steamrolled our islands that's how flat it is. The island I live on - Majuro - is a skinny little thing with only two roads and the ocean is on either side of the road that's how narrow it is. Like everyone's backyard is the ocean. There's salt everywhere the wind is salty the clouds are probably swollen with the salt from the sea. There's a lot of coconut trees. When my dad drove the truck home at night i'd lie on the bed of the truck and stare at the stars between a fan of coconut trees. The night sky is insane you can see the milky way at times - the houses are low and small for the most part and there's no traffic lights so it's not as bright as the cities out here are. There's sand everywhere. You have to drive slow cuz kids run across the street all the time - chasing some runaway ball or chasing each other. When you go towards town ( I don't live in town people call where i live the country because people are more spread out) that's when it gets a bit more packed. This is supposedly the most developed area but it's also the most fucked up part because it's where all the houses are packed together and too much concrete that doesn't fit well against the backdrop of the ocean. There are a lot of buildings that are falling apart and completely useless. There are dust clouds every where - from all the cars from people's slippers kicking up the dust it's dust in cracks and in your wheels and in between your toes. If you drive at night there's a lot of teenagers and men by the side of the road and sometimes also hella kids like a cluster out of nowhere. I drove by a pair of men fighting by the side of the road once. It looked like they were doing some sort of awkward slow dance - they were both drunk so they were clutching eachother and gripping each other's neck falling real real slow to the ground.

Hawaii is a city. But it's also an island so it doesn't necessarily move at the pace of a real city. It's way faster than marshalls - there's highways but even on the highways people drive slow - you'll see a lot of bumper stickers that say "slow down this ain't the mainland" the mainland is america. There's a major consensus that "mainlanders" (and this is always said with some disdain) move too fast and are arrogant and take up space and uptight and rude. There are mountains here - most of the time dotted with what looks like little houses but are actually mansions. There are so many rainbows - marshalls might have the best for stargazing but hawaii wins with rainbows. I've seen triple rainbows while beads of rain cling to the windows of our car. There's a lot of buildings everywhere but there's also so many trees and it's pretty and so green everything's so green and lush and beautiful it's ridiculous. No Waikiki is ridiculous. It's packed with hotels big hotels little hotels HELLA people and restaurants and big swanky stores that have bouncers in slick suits that's how serious the shopping is.
Waikiki was the playground of my teenage years. I remember attempting to surf there - and i remember all the fine local boys chillin with their surfboards and their surfboard abs whipping back the salt in their hair. The ocean was peppered with surfers beginners experienced it didn't matter and i remember pearl diving (falling off the front of your board) all the time and bein like man fuck this i want a hamburger. i remember one time my friend showed me this spot where we basically had to sneak into some huge hotel ( i forget which one but it was huge) and climb the fire escape until we got to the roof. it was night time and you could see the entire waikiki from there with all the lights glittering so bright and to the side was the ocean, black it was so black the sea was right there like an animal that kept bowing its head to the shore - you could see some surfers were out there still too.

the bay is the city. so many people! and here's where the concrete is everywhere. when i think of the bay i think of the city lights - i think the city lights here are so beautiful. i used to hate the sky out here at night because you couldn't see any stars but then i realized the city was the stars and the sunsets here are also beautiful in their own ways with smog drifting and the bridge in the background. this was where i saw my first red sun - it was deep red like almost bloody and it scared the shit out of me. i also saw hail here for the first time - it was when i was late to tennis practice with my friend lisa and coach was pissed at us so he made us ran laps and as we were running these big chunks of ice were hitting us and i couldn't believe it was hail!
the bay is walking around with thai iced tea at the ashby flea market it's buying swishers at the corner store and climbing to the top of the parking lot complex to share a blunt with some boys with their bright skateboards and bright nikes. it's bart rides grinding against blackness and it's a lot of walking honestly in the sun and even at night. its concerts and dancing against sweaty shirts and screaming drunk down shattuck or through the mission and coasting along freeways on the bus with mariachi music or erykah badu blasting on my head phones.
the beaches here depress me though. it's too cold and gray and dirty and everytime i go i'm disgusted by the way people treat it. actually that's in a lot of places. even in waikiki sometimes i'll see a plastic bag floating in the water or especially in majuro where people leave broken beer bottles all over the beaches. i recently went to ocean beach at night though - my friend drove me to see it because i realized i missed the ocean and i needed to stop being prejudiced.it was nice. the lights were right on the other side and it was very cold but still pretty and there was a hint of salt in the air which i found comforting.