Good Poetry
Echoing Everest
Abigail Sears
If you were to be one of the six thousand and fourteen people to ever summit the top of Mt.
Everest, you would discover that oxygen would not be in your favor. That your very throat would
tighten around the consonants, the breath quickly sapping and melting into the sharp, icy wind.
Each syllable echoing down your esophagus, pitting the verbs in a constant losing battle against
the darkness.
Please. Let Us Speak.
Echoes are a funny thing. Because we don’t do anything unique. Anything special. Our own
voices- nothing but air passing by. But an echo. Those make our voices soar. Collecting dust as
they travel through the thick air and boomerang back to us, colliding with more force than you
ever thought possible.
Please. Let us pray.
I’ve been raised not to fear death. To stay golden until the words still. Anesthetized and idle. But
even then, six feet under, I want to echo. Voice a shot heard round the world. Participles to soar
with pride and envelop the mindless eulogy. A faint halo, pleading to be heard like a frantic
undersea echo attempting to get away. Not just through a diamond-studded microphone or
behind a makeshift door or over the solemn traintacks, but over the Mediterranean. Up over the
Himalayas. Up and up, echoing until I reach my peak.
Please. Let us smile.
My hair echoing the ancestors I could not be more different from. Echoing their voices saying
come back. Remember us. Remember me. Their echoes chilling the air every time the hot iron
singes their DNA. My eyes echoing all unseen portions of the memories. Some left forever
chained, far behind those blinded eyes of yours. Masticated memories that you can’t even
remember. Padlocked. Stored safely. Secluded and forgotten. My hands echoing each and every
sacred touch of this life. Body echoing my damnation. My trust. My hope. My love. And by
Everest I hope it does.
Please. Let us believe.
Echoing even higher up to Cithaeron. Because we’re all just echoing the voices of others.
Narcissists disguised as empaths slithering on the wind, colliding with a carbon-copy of
ourselves. Echoing louder than the feed. Then the temporal. Rumination. Please, actually no.
No. Let us speak. Voices louding to the very top, top, top of Everest.
Let
Us
Echo