A Place to Sit: Part 2

In the morning I stand out of my bed. It is after a few minutes of lying awake but with eyes closed and breathing steady, awaiting a push to lift me into the day. I look out the wide and short window on the west side of my bedroom. It is New Year’s Eve and the snow from earlier in the week is still present. It has been a cold week. The view outside my bedroom looks west towards Santa Fe, the area south of the more distinct arts district. There is an abandoned lot across the alley with two mattresses in the yard and one resting against the fence next to where my car is parked. Snow rests upon them but I’m sure they have been used in the last week. The building itself is slitted with burnt and bent openings and the roof is white and black with burn marks and snow and holes and collapsed framing. It is old Denver. Over summer there was a fire there started by some homeless folks burning what they burn and living their lives. But the fire was put out and the building still remains. Next door to this lot is a three story townhouse, new and square and angled and clean. An environment framed perfectly by my bedroom window and exhibiting the reality of the morning and the present in my eyes. This is Santa Fe in this part of the city. This is the Baker neighborhood. I walk out of my bedroom to breathe heavier.