Published March 21, 2021

Meet you at the last Blockbuster on Earth

By Carly J. Dubois

Be kind,
rewind with me to that time we thought was over.
The colors, the smells, the titles,
all would be familiar parts of a time machine that still exists.
We could both get there and back in a day,
but would we so easily leave once through that door?
Would we be drawn to the same aisles
or end up at opposite walls, one eye on each other?
You pick one, I pick one,
and we can ask them to recommend one.
I never forgot your candy,
except that one time, but I went back. Remember?
You have your life now, and I have mine. Even so,
it’s there, waiting for us. I have the address.
Bend, don’t break, your obligations if you can,
and I’ll pretend I have something that will just have to wait.
Think about it while you try to recall when was your last movie night,
and I will get lost in imagining how a sequel no one expected would land.

Photo of the Blockbuster store in Bend, Oregon, by Michael Dasso/via Shutterstock.

¶

About this poem

Watching “The Last Blockbuster” on Netflix this weekend took me down a path of nostalgia, but writing a poem inspired by it was the last thing on my mind. My history with attempting poetry is a trail littered with tumbleweeds and metaphor shards, so I almost never entertain the notion of even trying. Instead, I dashed off a tweet, hoping it would sound vaguely lyrical. But then my friend Shannon, perhaps without realizing it, planted a seed. I agreed with her tweet, and initially I planned to challenge her to write the poem. Then I thought, Why not you, Carly? And more and more, it seemed like it would be fun to give it a go.

The first three words were a no-brainer, really, and after that, it took me about 20 minutes to write the rest, revising along the way. You’ll note that I changed the title a bit by removing one word, and my aim after that was to make it as universal as possible. I wanted people to be able to read it and think it could be about them and someone they know. And let’s not kid ourselves, I don’t consider it a real poem, not like the ones in the books on my shelves or the beautiful works written by poet friends of mine. It was a fun exercise, though, and I wanted to share it with you. Thanks for the inspiration, Shannon.

UPDATE: I have a friend in Bend. She took some photos of the Blockbuster for me! Now if I can just get her to go inside, which I am not sure she’s ever done! (What???)

Thank you, Kristal!