Oh to Blockbuster

The blue glow and the yellow sign is gone now

no hum of fluorescent light as you waltz into the store,

no rows of plastic spines whispering promises of a good Friday night

from behind their glossy sleeves and to the scratches of DVDs.

We used to wander those aisles

like pirates searching for the right treasure of a memory

hands trailing along titles we’d never choose or ones that we watched,

just to feel the weight of possibility and options.

Be kind, rewind—

a command, a courtesy, a creed.

Time itself could be rewound then,

if only by a few tender minutes at the end of a tape.

Friday nights had a shape—

they smelled like popcorn and indecision,

like stained old carpet worn thin beneath our circling steps,

like laughter echoing between Action and Romance.

There was always one copy left with unwound tapes—

or none at all—

And somehow that absence mattered more

than the film itself.

Late fees gathered like quiet remorse,

small debts to a place that felt like home.

We paid them willingly anyway,

as if buying back pieces of borrowed time.

Now the doors are locked,

the sign unlit,

The shelves emptied of their gentle noise.

And we stream our stories in silence—

no treasure map, no wandering,

No clerk who knows your taste better than you do.

Just a screen,

and the ghost of a place

where stories once lived

between our hands.

This was Blockbuster.