Tuesday Sweeney is a sophomore at the University of Colorado Boulder. Majoring in art history and minoring in cinema, she enjoys examining how context shapes perception and the complexity of people.
Tuesday thinks of this piece as an intersection between these two observational passions amidst the pandemic.
It is “an evaluation of what life is like without people, and what our spaces are without us in them.”
RMPBS: Writing the Pandemic
How Does One Forget What They Tried So Hard to Know
Tuesday Sweeney
How Does One Forget What They Tried So Hard to Know
We biked through town
down to the river
to see what we needed to see,
some sort of urban decay,
some place between past and present
and neither of us said much.
When you spoke to me I heard wind.
“What?” I asked but you opened your mouth,
and nothing came out.
Abandoned spaces.
This is where the kids used to play.
This used to be a hotel.
This was a college.
This was a library.
What are buildings
without people to occupy them?
There’s rot,
cracks on the
fourth floor where the stories are buckling,
spaces to see down below.
There’s also so much beauty.
When we went West
we saw a pair of calves,
back muscles,
curly brown hair.
When he turned around it startled me.
Suddenly,
he wasn’t just features anymore,
but he was a person.
Where is he going?
Where did he come from?
Down by the river,
we baptize our feet in the water,
and eat sandwiches.
Community stories from across Colorado and updates on your favorite PBS programs, in your inbox every Tuesday.
