newark

Abandoned

On a warm summer eve
With perfect weather
My reckless youth was abandoned
Not far from my childhood home

We ate pizza and searched in vain for corndogs
Playing thirty dollars worth of arcade games
Walking miles on the boardwalk
Awkwardly advancing with true romance

Over a decade before I lost my innocence
Twelve thousand miles away
In a unforgiving desert
In a land that God had forgotten

That evening I forgot the horrors and pains
I focused on you
Savoring the day, as if, the creator had made its splendor
Just for you and I

We laughed and joke
People watching and job guessing
You even got me to go out on the sand
Of the beaches I surfed twenty years before

I held your hand on the drive home
Laughing and talking all the while
Till the dawns early light
A three hour first kiss ended that special night

Awaking together, I thought
This is first day of the rest of my life
Realizing somewhere between the Skeeball and sunlight
I had begun to fall in love for the last time in my life