Wednesday’s Poetry Prompt: Back in My Heyday (Back in My Day)

Wednesday’s Poetry Prompt: Take the phrase "Back (blank)," replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. 

Back in My Heyday (Back in My Day)

Am I too young or not old enough to say

back in my day like my grandma and them?

How far can four decades of living a best

blessed life can take you down memory lane

without you and I holding hands,

skipping between the beautiful lanes of

simplicity, innocence, and joy-

where I was a minor in a major World Wide Web

daydreaming on my white and floral printed daybed

where I consumed micro soft dreams and prayed

that they would grow bigger by the day like my Windows.

You know, way back, when you could

Yahoo me before you Googled me.

You could page me and I call back

on a wired Sprint phone that

my single, working, collegiate

mother paid in full for.

If lost, you could find my nosedived

in her encyclopedias, atlas and college books.

You could dance the Roger Rabbit,

Cabbage Patch, Tootsie Roll and

Macarena beside a boombox with me.

On solo strolls and trips, my Walkman

walked everywhere with me.

I lived in libraries on the weekend.

I lived for TRL, 106 & Park, Teen Summit,

Comic View, Rap City, and Cita’s World.

You know, way back when Mandela

walked free and the Princess of Wales died.

And outside of my outside,

I can clock it that I was ahead of my time.

I felt safer surrounded by my

pastel pink Precious Moment Bible,

My Little Pony, Teddy Ruxpin,

Kenya and Twist ‘n Style Tiffany dolls;

my one Latin, one White and five Black Barbies,

my Lisa Frank stickers and school stationery;

My stack of The Baby-sitter Club and Goosebumps books,

My Disney VHS collections and 

a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank

than people because church taught me

how to count the number of living

angels and devils in my presence

without my first or second hand.

Then came Y2K, and the world never ended,

it's axis just took a drastic digital turn

like the Twin Towers

that crashed and burned 

after the exalted one, Aaliyah.

Then came more genocide after genocide,

more civil and guerrilla warfare worldwide

and now, everything is really quantity over quality…

💜 D'ElegantOne