Everybody wants to go back...
some people want to go back
to the 1980s, or perhaps to the 1960s -
to a time when things, in retrospect,
seemed better than now...
whether it is the music,
the television, the movies,
or the fact that the world
felt more hopeful and optimistic,
people who grew up at a particular time -
before the internet,
before anyone who is anyone
could be famous
whether they are talented or not.

Everybody who looks back
at a time when technology was in its infancy,
when if you wanted to talk to someone
you either had to call them on the phone
or see them face to face,
remembers how simple, and yet wonderful,
the world seemed to be...
some people long for the first time
that they saw something,
for the first time that they heard something,
for the first time that they learned something,
for the first time that they felt something -
because the first of anything
influences everything that comes after.

Everybody wants to repeat the best of times
and forget about the worst of times,
but the world is not as black and white
as our television screens
used to make us believe it was -
because when seen beyond
even the marvel of technicolor
the clarity of real life 
shows us all details that are too
complex to ever be captured.

Everybody occasionally hides
what they wish had never happened,
what they wish they hadn't done,
and what they would choose to undo
if they had a time machine of silver or blue -
but what people forget
is that if you were to change the past
then you would unravel
what made what was what it was:
the source of love, inspiration,
beauty, simplicity, poetry,
and hidden complexity that it will always be.

To go back would be fun,
but there are some things that matter more
because they are unrepeatable -
which is why the future is more important
and compelling to contemplate and hope to see,
because what could be, not what was,
is the true stuff of dreams.