When the echoes of your neighborhood fall silent, and the wind chimes stop ringing,
Breathe.
There is a time for inhalations and exultations.
Do not forget we are living in history, please make your contribution to the textbooks thoughtfully.
Scribble in the margins of love and hangman’s noises and spirals that go all the way past the page, and remember the process of history that has brought that page into your presence. The tree that fell and was peeled layer by layer and chemically repurposed, to hold your thoughts for you. The weight of its death as it holds the heaviest of your breaths.
And your breath is so heavy these days. So heave it towards the moon and howl because it’s 8 PM, and this is Denver. We are the echoes that do not fall silent, the porchlight that does not burn out, the PBR that stays cold, even in direct sunlight.
So carve your truth into the former flesh of your lungs, but do not think it is any truer than the air you would breathe because of these pages.
How generous of the trees to give us air, just so we can cut them down and write about how beautiful they were. How selfish of us to not tell of how disgusting we were to the beauty of this world. How dare we rewrite the history of our horrors until it shines, but can’t see ourselves in it any more. Hoarding the grace under generic gentrified graffiti, and masks that do nothing to hide the fear in our eyes.
Remember the imperfection of tree branches, and how they worry not of straight lines and sterile wounds.
When the echoes of your neighborhood fall silent, and the wind chimes stop ringing,
Breathe in.
And howl.
Charles Dalton Telschowis a 26 year old Colorado native who is set to release his third self-published book of poetry, “a constellation of sparks”. He has been performing poetry for over ten years and also has been in the local music scene for almost as long. He has a solo music project called “The Polite Heretic”
This poem is from the Thought For Food anthology,
a poetry collection benefiting Denver Food Rescue.
You can purchase a copy of the book here.
South Broadway Ghost Society 