Back Then

Can you remember back to a time before the internet?
A time when good things came to those who waited?
When no one knew better, so everyone smoked cigarettes?
Before everyday brought you a computer that needed to be updated

When men wore suits every single day
And women wore skirts or pants or dresses
When chivalry wasn’t dead, and no one cared what you weighed
When people in the first world countries didn’t live to such excesses

When you actually wrote a real letter
With ink and pen on paper
You folded it up, stuck on a stamp and prayed for the better
Hoping against hope that it would get there fully together

And you’d wait for a week, checking the mail everyday
For that response that you so badly craved
The anticipation building ‘til it’s finally here, hooray!
Rip open the missive, then keep it somewhere safe

And you write out a response, your wrists aching
But hey, there’s no gain for no pain
Yes, that was the life, a life we should be retaking
Because while it wasn’t as advanced, save the airplane

It was still wondrously , breathtakingly amazing
In my own sort of ode to those days of old
I still write letters to my friends, sometimes with olden phrasing
Or a peculiar British tone, so that they can keep them ‘til they’ve grown old