Micah Grotegut
ONO CHICKEN

Scrolling through the news, I clicked on a video headlined “Historic Lahaina Burnt Down in Wildfire.” I listened to the reporter describe the ashy remains of once-standing homes and shells of vehicles strewn on apocalyptic roads, the landscape resembling anything but Hawaii. My feed was flooded with the wildfire: images of an absent Front Street, accounts of residents jumping into the ocean to escape the flames, drone footage of gray block after gray block. I don’t remember if I ever visited Lahaina, walked Front Street, purchased a poke bowl and ate on Kaanapali Beach. Natural disasters make the headlines daily now, it seems. So I kept scrolling, the back of my mind twisting, contorting around the thought that this was me–my fault–even though I was in Utah. I told my mom, who told my Grammy, who called up some friends left on Maui. I love a restaurant in Carson where Grammy lives now named Back Home In Lahaina. Their chicken is ono. That’s what I thought of when I first read “Historic Lahaina Burnt Down in Wildfire.” Ono chicken. Winding, narrow roads. Plumeria. Papa. Da kine. One-sixteenth. Me. I had forgotten my home until it burnt down.

Micah Grotegut is a recent graduate from Utah Valley University. He is native Hawaiian, as well as Filipino, Chinese, and Caucasian. When he is not writing about Hawaii or seagulls, he’s searching for the best grindz in his landlocked state of Utah. He enjoys the mountains, the red rock to the south, the drive to Denver along I-70, and his small LEGO city.

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