Happy Friday to All. It’s a somber beginning to what will surely be an emotional weekend. I was a junior in college waking up in my dorm room on 9/11/2001. I don’t remember much of the day. I am fairly certain I woke up after the first tower was hit and maybe saw the second tower get hit. My brother was going to school in lower Manhattan and so my concern was for his safety. My college roommates father worked at the Pentagon and he had concerns for his safety. I just know that, like many, when this time of year comes around, I am haunted by this sense of innocence shattered.
I do remember writing about it in my creative writing class but never sharing it. Then months later, during a semester in Australia, I finally recited it aloud at a hostel in Byron Bay during a talent contest which scored me a couple free nights. I dug it up thought I would share it again.
We sat on barstools, worn leather and cheap foam
Watched the bubbles shuffle to the surface of our drinks
We bowed our heads, tipped our glasses, said a prayer
As we stared, eyes glued to the television thinking
Our hearts sinking like the image of those two towers
Minds showered with clouds of smoke, choked
Each moment stretched longer, incensed and evoked
A sense of sand sifting through my fingers, watch the hours pass recalling those mighty sounds, as the towers crashed freight trains remain plastered on the mind
Tell me is it a sign of the times, can we roll back, try to rewind
Realize, be kind, stumble as we rise above the dust, we must
Not forget though I am hard-pressed to remember
What the days were like before the 11th of September
