The 1993 Balloon

In 1993, I was
an optimistic, naive balloon,
filled with helium hope
but leavened with
trepidation.

The capital O
outrageousness of
Maury, Jerry, Ricki and Geraldo
now seem quaint,
even puzzling.

We shared
anonymous germs
in Superman’s
ubiquitous changing rooms
because there were
no cell phones,
and even then,
Superman
was merely
a human actor
in garish tights,
before CGI technology
made him
Super indeed.

There was no
user-friendly internet,
to capitalize on human
avarice and desire,
before the days
of monetization,
before it became a
privacy-sucking machine.

Streaming existed in
air waves,
radio waves,
television waves,
media resistant to ownership.

One merely talked
to another.
No email,
no text,
no IM,
no DM.
The impersonality
of the beeper
should have been
a warning.

Before
Everything
became customizable,
we learned to adapt
to the things we
couldn’t change,
and when each of us
endured it,
we had a shared
common experience.

I recall it
as a time
of dreamy possibility,
less splintered,
simpler and slower,
and looking back,
my heart
sighs in unexpected
yearning.