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When cassettes were around,

things were different.

Memories stuck to them

like dust on their plastic shells.

On the front,

the artist’s picture.

Inside,

a list of songs.

Side A.

Side B.

I would turn it over

from A to B,

then B to A,

again and again.

The same sounds,

the same music,

reverberating around me.

One day,

I managed to buy more cassettes.

Some borrowed from friends,

some from my mother’s collection,

some from my uncle’s collection,

some from classmates.

The fusion of all that music

was beautiful.

After school,

during holidays,

a cassette became a place to rest,

an escape from the noise of the world.

Bitter moments

stacked quietly in my mind.

Good moments,

I treasured.

And somewhere

between Side A and Side B,

pieces of my life

were being recorded too.