Love came to me via a cassette

One Evening in 1996
you came on your bike as I waited under the gulmohar
took out a red rose from inside your shirt
and a black and white cassette. 
 
You didn’t yet confess you love me
yet I saw it coming real soon
I was just 17 then
Naïve and already in love with you.
 
You gifted me that vintage cassette
‘It has songs that I love’, you said
and wanted me to listen to all specially  
the last song on side B
and the second song on side A !!
 
‘Pay particular attention to the lyrics’, you said.
I had butterflies in my stomach doing a salsa
ran home to hear them all on my player
locking my door hiding my thumping heartbeats
my fingers trembled as I opened the cassette box.
 
Side B last song - the Annie’s song 
so soothing and so dreamy 
I drowned in the lyrics
he loves me, yes he does  
the thought me me blush..
 
You choose to confess love through Mr Denver
As nothings gonna change my love for you played next
George Benson confirmed your love for me that day.
You too ought to know by now, how much I love you !!
 
I still have that cassette with me
And many more that you gifted. 
They remind me of our young love
As I reminisce those melodies
and these 24 years of tom and jerry run.

Our love blossomed over the rotary telephone 
As I dialled your number and let it ring just once.
A signal for you to pick up the next call.
And oh those blank calls
from the public telephone booths
all for rupee one !!


©Preeti S Manaktala 
Day 17 
NaPoWriMo2020

Our prompt for the day (optional, as always), asks you to move backwards in time away from such modern contrivances as podcasts. Today, I challenge you to write a poem that features forgotten technology. Maybe it’s a VCR, or a rotary phone. A cassette player or even a radio. If you’re looking for a potential example, check out this poem by Adam Clay, which takes its central metaphor from something that used to stoke fear in the hearts of kids typing term papers, or just trying to play a game of Oregon Trail.