90s Kid

You remember the little sticker that begged you to spin the tape backward before you brought it home.

You remember the sacred panic of a tape unspooling, and the pencil that always knew what to do.

You remember the glowing green 12:00 that nobody in the house ever fixed.

You remember the little blinking box that held strangers’ voices hostage on a cassette the size of a postage stamp.

A square of beige plastic that held your whole world in 1.44 megabytes and felt like it could hold the universe.

You remember the heavy little box on top of the TV, and the remote that was leashed to it like a dog that wasn’t allowed off the porch.

The coiled cord was a leash, a lifeline, and the closest thing your house had to a portal — and you stretched it to its absolute limit.

You remember the metal skeleton on the roof that ruled the channels and feared the wind.

There was exactly one computer, it lived in the living room, and the whole family had to take turns being kings of it.

You remember the song the internet sang before it would let you in.