Tags
black mirrors, diary, envelope, handmade pages, heart, letters, lost art, love, new-age devices, old-school, post office, self-conscious, speed post, staccato, starch paste, typewriters, virtual communication, yellowing paper
My hands
Clutched the single brown envelope
Even tighter
As I self consciously
Hid the scribbled address
And messily drawn little hearts
Averting
The befuddled, questioning gazes of
White-haired khakhi-clad men
Wondering aloud
What a liberally dressed
Young woman
Was doing
In a high-ceiled, wooden floored
Half a decade old
Post office?
What none of them know
Is that
The echoes of musical staccato of typewriters
The oddly soothing smell of starch paste
And the sight of stacked yellowing paper
Is more familiar
Than the rattling hum of repetitive music
The stench of distilled spirit
And the aesthetics of EDM concerts
Even in this era
Of virtual communication
My fingers are more accustomed
To put pen to paper
Than type avowals of love
On a white blank screen
And my eyes are usually glued
To handmade leaves of a diary
Than the black mirrors
Of a ceaseless stream of new-age devices
Alas, the quintessential term was love letters
And not love emails
And if preserving a lost art
Makes me old-school at heart
Then I’m guilty as charged
