Hollywood

Response to Prompt 52: High School Relationships

I didn't mean for it to be, but I guess it was kind of self-serving to create this prompt. The poem struck a cord with me, perhaps because August will be 30 years my husband and I have been together. Ahhh... nostalgia. Sorry, not sorry.

Hollywood
by LJ Kemp

You are Hollywood.
You are all the places
in the city we met.
Each time we visit
I ride beside you
looking at your face
and I see the boy I sat beside
all those years ago.
In a sense our son was born here
way back then.

It was inevitable
that through strife
and struggle of adolescence
we would find our way
together, still.
Are you as happy
as I am?

I still remember
fogged up windows
in front of John Williams Park
after a weeknight concert.
Scrounging for change
at the return toll
from a secret day trip
to the Keys.
Rolling in towels
half-dressed in the dark
on Hollywood Beach.
We are teenagers in lust
our bodies sticky in the ocean air
sand in our hair and
our sweaty creases.
I would stroll the shoreline,
my hand in yours
flushed and shameless
carefree and passionate
blissfully young.

In the shimmer of sunlight
you catch my stare and
as if you read my mind
you return the gaze
and take me there.